Demons Bane
by Dark-Lord-Winston
Summary: Amber Lote has replaced Kagome! She's rude she's crude and every other word she says is a swear. She also wears pants like a normal girl! Following the original plot from the shows so far.
1. The girl who overcame time

"Souta what the hell are you doing?" The rough shout of Amber Lote startled the young boy who was staring down into the depths of the temple cellar.  
  
He turned to look at her as she came running across the temple courtyard, her brow knit into her familiar scowl and her bright brown eyes flashing. Souta and Amber did not pretend to enjoy each others company, Amber clearly found Souta to be an irritating nuisance and Souta found Amber to be rather impatient and loud. The strangely ill tempered exchange student stopped in front of him looking half way between being fed up and curious.  
  
"Buyo's down there." Souta admitted looking down into the cellar. The cellar was pitch black, the boys' grandfather having not bothered to put a light down there. All that was left of the shrine in the cellar was a beaten up old well, Souta remembered his grandfather telling him once, boarded up and useless.  
  
"So go down there and get him." Amber replied nastily, shoving a package of cigarettes farther into her school bag. Souta often wondered how the unpleasant American girl had gotten a space on the exchange program to Japan. Her heritage was obviously Japanese. That much was evident from her look and voice but Seattle had poisoned her manners and she had never experienced the discipline that Souta's mother had always commanded from her children.  
  
"I can't." Souta admitted scratching his head. "It's dark and scary down in the cellar."  
  
"So let your precious cat starve then." Amber glared at the boy.  
  
"Will you please go down and get him Amber? PLEASE?" Souta shrank back as the girl scowled and looked down into the cellar.  
  
"Fine!" She agreed readjusting the shoulder strap of her bag and pushing past him. "If it'll make you shut up."  
  
Souta followed her down into the cellar, their lungs drawing in gulps of the musty air. Amber's back was visible in front of him, her dark hair shining in the sunlight that leaked through the open door. Below then they could hear a bizarre scratching noise, like a huge claw scratching against stiff wood.  
  
"See there's this weird noise that . . ." Souta began as Amber reached the bottom of the stairs.  
  
"Of course there's a scratching noise stupid." She cut him off rudely, she scanned the dark room briefly before beginning to move around looking for Buyo. "The cats down here isn't it?"  
  
"I . . . I guess so Amber." Souta replied sulkily, angry about being so violently snubbed.  
  
"Here! Here's your damn cat." Souta looked over to see Amber roughly pulling Buyo out from a crack between the well and the wooden floor by the scruff of his neck. She thrust the cat roughly into the boys' arms and turned to go up the stairs. "It's dark and scary down in the cellar Amber." She mimicked cruelly under her breath.  
  
She reached the stairs and turned back to shout at Souta when a violent tremor ran through the floor. She stopped and looked at the old well, her cinnamon brown eyes shining slightly with nervousness. Another tremor, like something hitting the boards nailed over the opening of the well.  
  
"Souta, get behind me." Amber muttered, not taking her eyes off the well. It was still for a moment and then another bang, this one loosening one of the boards until the wood groaned in protest. "SOUTA! GET BEHIND ME NOW!" Amber yelled.  
  
Souta stared at the well for a minute, his eyes large and scared before he ran past her up the stairs. He paused halfway up, silhouetted by the shaft of sunlight coming from the open door. "Amber, don't just stand there, come on!" He yelled back at her.  
  
"Yeah." Amber replied quietly, her eyes still glued to the loose board. The well held her in a trance as she looked at the well, scrutinizing its rough masonry and beaten up exterior.  
  
"AMBER!"  
  
Souta's shout brought her out of the trance. "Yeah I'm coming!" Amber turned away from the well and began to walk up the stairs, not daring to glance back at the well. "Stop crying brat, I'm perfectly . . ."  
  
The last attack burst the pathetic wooden barrier over the well. As the wood shards flew Amber spun and looked back at the strange well. A mass of white smoke, whirling and screaming like a tornado whipped out of the well, spraying Amber's eyes with wood fragments and dust.  
  
"AMBER!" Souta shouted down. "AMBER COME ON!"  
  
The girl turned away again and leapt up the first two steps. She tripped on the third and felt the rough wood scrape the skin of her left knee before she tumbled back into the old temple cellar where the white twister howled as she landed hard on her elbows.  
  
Pain shot up her arms into her shoulders and tears of pain welled in her large eyes. Souta took two steps down as if to fight off the wind but Amber screamed at him and threatened to strangle him if he came any closer. "NO! GO GET YOUR MOTHER!" She screeched as she struggled to her feet.  
  
"AMBER LOOK OU . . ." Souta's warning came a second to late. He'd seen the arms burst out of the white wind and fly towards the helpless Amber. He saw them grab onto her and pull her across the wooden floor. And he saw Amber fight them.  
  
It was something. Amber kicked, grabbed the creatures pinky fingers and attempt to break them with the easy motion she'd showed Souta when he'd asked her about her self-defense lessons. She swore and punched and scratched at the hands that were gripping so tightly to her arms, all to no avail. As Souta watched, screaming in terror, the bizarre monster dragged Amber back into the well, and she was gone.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber Lote was falling. She could feel the wind whip past her face and the feel of gravity tugging at the core of her stomach as she plummeted through the dark, star filled void of the well. But nothing mattered at that moment except the hands that gripped her body.  
  
Amber was not a quitter. She grown up in one of the worse places in Seattle until her mother managed to bag herself a rich old husband and after that shipped Amber off to a boarding school and then off to Japan. But she liked to think she still had the street smarts that had kept her alive for fourteen years. She tried everything, scratching, screaming, breaking fingers and flailing but the hands were stronger then stone and had a grip like iron. She fell farther and farther, fighting every inch of the decent.  
  
"You have it don't you?" The voice whispered in her ear. Amber glared at the body taking shape before her. All thoughts on the bizarre nature of this encounter were banished from her mind and she struggled and aimed a kick at the woman's body taking form before her. "You have it! I feel my power returning to me! My body is returning."  
  
Amber looked down, horrified as the woman's body took form. She was skinny and naked to the waist with wild tangled black hair and vicious piercing eyes that burned into Amber like burning hot brands. As she watched, the horrible creature sprouted for more arms, making her total six, and her lower body grew into form, not legs or hips but a fat curling mass of hard shelled coils and millions of writhing legs that clicked horribly. Realization hit the plummeting girl like a wall and she began to laugh at the insanity of the situation. She was being pulled down an endless well, whose walls shone as though they were painted with stars by a naked half woman- half monster centipede creature that was screeching about her possessing something that was giving her power. Amber fell, no longer fighting and laughing her head off thinking she'd gone completely insane.  
  
"What are you laughing wretched creature?" The centipede woman asked harshly. "Where is it? Where have you hidden it? Where is the Shikon No Tama?"  
  
Amber laughed harder remembering the key chain trinkets Souta's grandfather had shown her earlier that week. "Souta get the pesticide!" She called into the darkness hysterical with fear.  
  
"What?" The centipede hissed. "Stupid ignorant human where have you hidden the sacred jewel?" The centipede looked at her for a minute as though wondering what to do with the laughing human. It leaned in close and Amber watched, as it's huge sticky red tongue slid out of its mouth.  
  
"Oh you are NOT going to lick me!" Amber screamed at the creature as she thrashed about.  
  
The centipede slid its tongue up her cheek and smiled as Amber screeched. "GET OFF ME YOU SLIMY BITCH!" She screamed. She threw up her hand to deliver an uppercut. As she raised her hand she felt a curious tingling sensation in her side, like someone was pricking the skin with pins and needles, it festered there for a second, like the calm before the storm. Amber did not hesitate but the moment her hand collided with the centipede woman's jaw the feeling in her side exploded like greased lightening, up her arm and burst from her finger tips in the form of a blast of green energy. Amber gasped as the beam ripped through the centipede's arm like a hot knife cuts through warm butter and felt the weight of her right arm come free from it's hold on her body. The left still clung and as the centipede fell away from her through the tunnel and Amber realized the vile truth as she lost sight of the strange monster. The hand clinging to her arm was no longer attached to anything.  
  
Amber though for a minute she would faint but the hard tang of pain brought her away from the darkness as she landed badly on the floor of the well. It made no sense, she'd been falling for so long she should be dead by now but as she shook the still twitching arm off of her body she looked up to see the mouth of the well barely six feet away. This was one seriously screwed up Monday.  
  
"SOUTA! SOUTA YOU LITTLE PAIN, GET HELP WILL YOU?" She shivered as she glanced at the severed arm and looked around the empty well. Something was wrong. Souta might have run off in fright when that freaky centipede jumped out of the well but the heat of the day hadn't even begun to leak down into the cellar when she'd gone down looking for the stupid cat that morning. And the well was hot like high noon in the middle of summer. The sun shone through the mouth and as Amber squinted up she caught sight of a patch of bright blue sky and cloud. There was something definitely wrong with this whole affair.  
  
But she wouldn't figure this out at the bottom of a well. Amber scanned the rough walls and caught sight of the thick vines that were growing up the side. She inspected them carefully, testing their supple fronds and inspecting the places where they had grown through the cracks in the bricks to get at the soil beyond. She sighed and rubbed her forehead and rearranged her still clinging school bag before she began climbing the vines slowly and carefully, her fingers finding handholds in the solid stone wherever possible. She dreaded the thought that at any moment the vines might give out and trap her in the well with the severed arm and the questions eating away at her mind.  
  
Luckily for her though the plants held until she was able to drag herself out of the well, scrapping her shins raw and bloody against the rough edge but living to feel the blinding sun wash over her body. She was in the middle of the bare wilderness, trees and bushes spreading across the landscape and the unfamiliar cries of wild birds filling the air.  
  
"Where the hell am I?" Amber asked herself as she looked down at her legs. They were scratched and dribbling bright blood down across her skin and staining her sneakers but the pain seemed very far away as she looked around the unfamiliar place, fear rising in her throat.  
  
"Oh God how I need a cigarette." She muttered fishing the pack out of her bag. She stuck one in her mouth and lit it up with her lighter. As she took a deep breath of smoke she calmed down somewhat and tried to consider the situation rationally.  
  
But there was no rational explanation to this. She'd been dragged through a well by a freaking centipede and deposited in a completely different well in the middle of good forsaken forest. There was no way to explain this. Amber took another big drag from her cigarette and looked around the clearing. The huge wide branched tree growing to her left looked like the one that grew beside the temple and ground the butt into the dirt before going to investigate.  
  
She pushed aside the bushes and looked around. Something froze inside her as she caught sight of the boy pinned to the tree.  
  
He looked human, except for the dog-like ears that poked out of his long silver-white hair. He was pinned to the tree by an arrow that protruded from his chest where his heart should be and he was dressed in a red kimono thank looked a little like the one Souta's grandfather wore on special occasions. It was very strange to Amber, but then after what she'd just been through she thought that nothing could be very odd. But he had DOG- ears.  
  
Amber walked up to the tree thinking about her awful day, her eyes fixed on the mans bizarre ears. She noticed that thick vines had grown over his body and the sight promoted a harsh flick of memory in her dazed mind. Dog- ears.  
  
Of course! This boy was almost identical to the one in the weird dreams she'd started having since she moved into the temple. The ones where the boy before her fought with the woman with the bow and she pinned him to this very tree. What had she called him? Inuyasha? Yes that was the name, Inuyasha.  
  
"What's going on over there?" The cries of approaching people startled Amber and she turned hopefully towards them. So this wasn't the middle of nowhere! Maybe these people could explain where she was and why this boy had been pinned to this tree. "You! What are you doing there?"  
  
"My name is Amber Lote. I'm lost, can you help me?" She took a step towards the voices but jumped back when an arrow imbedded itself in the ground at her feet.  
  
"Don't try anything stranger." The archer stepped out of the cover of trees and glared at her harshly. "I think you'd better come with us."  
  
~IY~  
  
"Maybe she's a fox in disguise?" One of the men suggested poking Amber in the side as she struggled with her tied hands. "Or a spy! She could be a spy!"  
  
"That's the fourth time you've said that Tanjiro." The man that had been named as Toshiro responded in a bored tone. "We understand your ideas."  
  
Tanjiro made a rude gesture at Toshiro and continued talking with the other men. "Well if she isn't a spy what is she?" He asked poking Amber again in her sore side.  
  
"The priestess Kaede will tell us what she is." Toshiro replied confidently glaring at the helpless girl on the mat. She merely tossed a muffled curse at him and tried to fight the gag they'd tied over her mouth.  
  
"My position is bad." Amber thought looking around the dark hut they'd tied her up in. "My position is terrible." She admitted to herself frowning to herself.  
  
"The priestess Kaede is coming!" One of the men that had dragged her into the dirty little village appeared at the door and Toshiro and the rest of them hurried to greet this mysterious priestess.  
  
"My position could not be worse." She thought as the form of a sturdy old lady appeared at the doorway.  
  
"Well then stranger, what are ye?" The old lady took shape as she stepped away from the glare of the sun outside and Amber couldn't help but look amazed as she took her in.  
  
She was at least a hundred years old with all those wrinkles. She had to be older then Souta's grandfather and a heavy black eye-patch covered her right socket while her remaining eye glared at her.  
  
"I'M A FUCKING PRISONER GENIOUS!" Amber snarled, but the gag muffled her response into a wet gurgling sound.  
  
Kaede stooped and pulled the gag down around her neck and stepped back. "If ye are demon I shall know." She told Amber sternly. She was holding an ominous looking jar in her hands and she began to open it slowly, the lid making rough grinding noises and she removed it. Was it poison? Acid? Some sort of chemical?  
  
"Listen I . . ." Amber began her eyes fixed on the jar.  
  
"Don't say anything. The purifying will tell me." The old woman barked as she tossed the lid aside.  
  
Amber could feel the tense knot rising in her stomach as Kaede reached into the jar. What was purifying? It didn't sound pleasant or comfortable.  
  
The first handful of salt caught her in the face. A few grains filtered through her long lashes and into her eyes as Kaede threw more onto her and Amber screamed.  
  
"A DEMON!" The irritating voice Toshiro penetrated the burning pain of Amber's salt filled eyes and she screamed a stream of obscenities at him as she writhed.  
  
"I AM NOT A DEMON YOU MORON! I HAVE SALT IN MY GOD DAMN EYES!" She screeched.  
  
"LIAR YOU ARE A DEM . . ." Toshiro was cut of by Kaede's rough bark.  
  
"Leave her be Toshiro. She is no demon, though she may be a spy." The next sensation was that of someone carefully forcing her face down into a bowl of water to wash out the salt.  
  
"There now does that feel better child?" Kaede's voice wasn't quite as harsh but the salt still burned at Amber's eyes.  
  
"NO THAT IS NOT FUCKING BETTER!" She screamed. "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? DO YOU GO AROUND BLINDING PEOPLE OFTEN?"  
  
"I am Kaede. A priestess and I want to ask you who ye think ye are. It is your own fault that ye got salt in you're eyes, now tell me child. Are ye a spy?" The world began taking form again as the burn of the salt lessened.  
  
"No I'm . . ." Again the old priestess cut her off. This time she grabbed Amber's face roughly and pulled it up close to hers.  
  
"Ye greatly resemble my sister stranger." She said quietly and before Amber could ask about that Kaede was helping her to her feet.  
  
"Come now stranger." She said, suddenly sounding tender and concerned. "Ye have much explaining to do."  
  
~IY~  
  
"The stew is not poison." Kaede reprimanded her guest gently as the girl stared out the window, her bowl cupped loosely in her bandaged hand.  
  
"Huh? Oh yeah! Good stew." Amber said the vacant look in her eyes leaving for a moment.  
  
"I would be flattered if not for the fact ye have not eaten a spoonful of it." Kaede replied motioning for her to eat.  
  
Amber did, quietly, her eyes still watery and leaking tears down her cheeks. She looked so much like Kikyo it was almost eerie. Yet she was different then Kikyo, wild and vulgar where Kikyo had always been controlled and sensible. It troubled Kaede slightly as she watched Amber eat.  
  
"So you know nothing of Shikon No Tama?" She asked tiredly.  
  
"Nothing." Amber confirmed. "Nothing more then what Souta's grandfather told me about back in my time. And he had hundreds of them. He was selling them as key chains."  
  
Kaede sighed and looked out across the village, thinking. Amber claimed to be from a different time and place, having climbed through the Bone Eaters Well.  
  
"Never the less ye must lead the youkai, Lady Centipede, back to the well ye claim to have come from." Kaede watched as Amber shuddered.  
  
"I am not facing that thing again." Amber replied pushing away her soup. She remembered the beam of green light that has leapt forth from her fingers and so easily and almost killed that huge monster. She did not want to spur something like that into effect again.  
  
"You must I . . ." Kaede stopped as she caught sight of the monstrous youkai advancing out of the trees. She went pale and looked at Amber, her eyes large and shining.  
  
"Run Amber!" She said pulling the girl out of the hut and running with her through the streets. The huge youkai had reached the village now, it plucked up one of the village men and threw him through the wall of his house and the screams of the villagers grew louder.  
  
"That was Toshiro Amber! He has a wife and three small girls! If you have a heart save them! Run to the Bone Eaters well, lead Lady Centipede away!" Kaede gave Amber a push towards the forest. The girl stood stalk still for a moment staring at the bulk of Lady Centipede like a scared deer.  
  
"You!" Lady Centipede accused, catching sight of Amber. "You are the human with Shikon No Tama! Give it to me! GIVE IT TO ME!"  
  
Amber stared at the fierce demon before obeying Kaede and running towards the forest. Kaede sent up a silent prayer before running herself to rally a group to attack Lady Centipede.  
  
"Give her wings like the wind." She prayed as she hurried towards Tanjiro and his men. "And please, please, please, let Inuyasha sleep through this affair."  
  
~IY~  
  
The wood smelled different then it had that night. That night when he'd held Shikon No Tama in the palm of his hand, his key to becoming full demon and been shot down by Kikyo, who he'd thought was dead.  
  
Inuyasha stirred where he was pinned, the throb of pain in his chest reminding him how Kikyo had managed to seal him. He remembered the heavy metallic smell of Kikyo's blood, the sound of her labored breathing and the creak of her bow as she drew it tight and the twang of the string as she let loose a merciless arrow. The arrow that had killed him. The arrow that even now sealed him to the tree.  
  
Inuyasha lifted one hand to the arrow, hoping the potency of her magic had worn off. But with a cackle of power and energy the arrow repelled his hand.  
  
"Damn." He cursed under his breath as he shook his clawed hand. His yellow eyes flicked over the surrounding forest and his sensitive nose picked up the tracings of her scent.  
  
"I smell her." He snarled to himself. "I smell the woman that killed me."  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber swore as she stumbled through the forest. There was a reason she'd dreaded track and field season back in Seattle. And the reason was simple. She was a lousy runner.  
  
Volley Ball and Tennis had been okay for her, though she generally abhorred the idea of playing sports beyond her gym workouts. But cross-country was like hell fire to Amber as she wove through the trees, fear rising through her like a great bird as Lady Centipede crashed through the foliage behind her. She was going to die. She was going to be killed by a fucking centipede.  
  
She reached the tree where she'd seen Inuyasha bound to the tree, supposedly dead and cloaked with vines. Now alive and looking rather amused by the whole thing.  
  
"Hey Kikyo, what are you doing hanging out with that wimpy centipede? Have you lost all your powers?"  
  
"Kikyo? What? Hey aren't you dead?" Amber gasped, trying to catch her breath.  
  
"Oh you'd like that wouldn't you?" Inuyasha snarled. "Well it didn't work Kikyo!"  
  
"I AM NOT KIKYO!" Amber screamed.  
  
"I don't care who you are!" Lady Centipede screeched as she swooped down towards her. "Give me Shikon No Tama!"  
  
In an instant Amber wondered if she'd ever see her mother again, if her mother would even notice she was gone and if she even wanted to see her mother again all at once. As the thoughts crashed together in her head there came a tremendous shout from the edge of the clearing. Spears flew through the air and sank into Lady Centipede with wet sucking noises that made Amber's stomach churn and in seconds Lady Centipede was dragged away from her helpless victim, the village men pulling her away with the ropes they'd attached to the ends of their spears.  
  
"Wow Kikyo, you really are weak!" Inuyasha smiled wickedly at Amber as she stared back at him.  
  
"FOR THE LAST TIME I AM NOT KIKYO!" Amber screamed at him.  
  
"Of course you are no one stinks like you do." He took a deep breath before a look of sudden realization passed over his handsome face. "You . . . YOU'RE NOT KIKYO!" He yelled at her.  
  
"NO SHIT SHERLOCK!" Amber screamed back angrily. "MY NAME IS AMBER LOTE!" She took a step forward as though to slap the restrained man but the village men lost their hold on Lady Centipede and the demon lunged forward, jaws snapping terribly.  
  
"I WILL HAVE SHIKON NO TAMA!" She roared snatching up Amber's small body. Amber scrabbled, looking for something to grab onto and seized a fistful of Inuyasha's silver hair as an anchor.  
  
"OW!" He yelled as the centipede tried to pull Amber away. "OW! THAT'S ATTACHED YOU KNOW!"  
  
"I'M SO SORRY I THOUGHT IT WAS AN UGLY WIG!" She replied sarcastically still screaming.  
  
"Give. Me. The. JEWEL!" Lady Centipede screamed. As the villagers watched, amazed, the demon grew fangs and easily bit into the girls' side.  
  
Amber screamed louder as Lady Centipede tore a purple jewel out of her flesh with her fangs and threw her torn body aside grasping for the jewel with her five remaining arms. It landed in the grass beside the sobbing girl and Inuyasha saw his chance.  
  
"THAT JEWEL! GIVE IT TO ME!" He yelled reaching out his hand to it. Amber looked at it and back at the yelling demon, unsure of what to do.  
  
"Shikon No Tama is MINE!" Lady Centipede screamed, she lashed out with her tail and Amber felt herself crushed against Inuyasha's chest, her face grinding into him and her blood splattering his red kimono.  
  
"Ah you were that half-demon that was working for the priestess. Had a fight did you? Is that why you're stuck up here on this tree. The creatures' ugly face drew up beside the arrow and she extended one hand. The same cackle of electric energy repelled her hand and she chuckled cruelly. "Well that IS a nice seal."  
  
Amber looked up and Inuyasha's angry face. "Stupid wimpy youkai! If I had my full power . . ."  
  
"Oh but you don't hanyou." Lady Centipede reminded him. "So just sit tight, suck your thumb and enjoy the show." She dangled the jewel in front of Inuyasha's face before popping it into her hideously fanged mouth and swallowing it.  
  
"DAMN IT." Inuyasha swore loudly and punched the tree with one fist, almost splintering the wood.  
  
"Are you as good as you say you are?" Amber screamed at him as Lady Centipede laughed.  
  
"If you can pull this arrow out I'll show you!" He snarled back, gesturing at the enchanted arrow with one clawed hand.  
  
"DO NOT PULL OUT THAT ARROW!" Kaede's shouts reached Amber from where she was pinned against Inuyasha's chest. "IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT BINDS HIM TO THE TREE!"  
  
"You old bag!" Inuyasha yelled down. "Do you want to be centipede food?" He glared down at Amber. "And what about you?" He asked quietly. "Do you want to die here?"  
  
Amber felt the answer before she even had time to think the answer. She didn't want to die a virgin at sixteen in a place she didn't know and in a time period she didn't even understand. Not this way.  
  
"NO!" Amber screamed as she seized the arrow, her decision made. She could feel the power rise up through her as the arrow exploded in her fist, a flash of bright purple light.  
  
"Inuyasha?" She asked looking up at him. "Inuyasha?"  
  
The half demon seemed to be savoring the feeling of having the arrow out of his chest before he laughed a cruel, evil sound and smiled horribly at the bleeding girl.  
  
Lady Centipede turned to them, her face livid and afraid before tightening her coils. Amber felt the air being crushed out of her lungs, felt her ribs groan in protest as the thick muscles of the centipede curled around her.  
  
But Inuyasha had other plans. His claws flashed as he cut them free from the suffocating grip of the monster. Amber felt her body fly to the side as Inuyasha cast her off, and attacked the living head of Lady Centipede, still regaining her powers. In a blink of an eye the powerful half demon is fighting the head easily, dodging the arms and fangs with simple grace and cutting the creature to pieces with his claws. The ground shook as Lady Centipede's body crashed down, lifeless and torn beyond all recognition.  
  
"Where is it Amber?" Kaede asked harshly. The girl was tired and still bleeding heavily from where Lady Centipede had torn open her side but Kaede could not risk Inuyasha getting his hands on the sacred jewel.  
  
The girl looked up her eyes rolling and blurry before pointing to one of the chunks of Lady Centipede that was already melting away to reveal the skeleton of the demon woman. Kaede reached into the flesh and pulled out the jewel, wiping it on her robes and handing it quickly to Amber.  
  
Amber looked at the jewel in he hand and rolled her eyes. What the hell did Kaede expect her to do with this hunk of glass? She turned to the old priestess to ask her that very question but at that moment Inuyasha caught their attention by breaking one of the giant rib bones of the centipede.  
  
"You'll hand that over to me now understand?" He asked pompously, glaring at the weak human that's wound leaked a puddle of blood over the dirt. "Or I'll start sharpening my claws on you."  
  
"Oh god." Amber thought, rolling her eyes back into her head. "Does it never fucking end?"  
  
~`~`~  
  
Wow, writing a chapter per episode is a long process. I'll try to make the next chapter shorter. Unless of course you like having chapters this long. Tell me in your reviews! NOW REVIEW! OR I'LL SIC KOGA ON YOU! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! 


	2. Seekers of the Sacred Jewel

YAY MORE AMBER! I love Amber by the way even with her potty mouth, just because she's so much smarter and so much LESS clueless than stupid Kagome. I also just realized that her personality seems a big melting pot of all my friends put together. YAY AMBER! A REAL NON-SWEET NON-SMART NON-MARY SUE!  
  
* Hem, Hem * Anyway I continue on now with the story of Inuyasha and Amber! Wee, writing is fun!  
  
~`~`~`~  
  
"You heard me you filthy human! Hand over the jewel and I promise I won't hurt you." Inuyasha glared at the groggy looking girl that lay sprawled on the ground before him, the precious Shikon No Tama clutched in her hand. She looked so much like Kikyo, SMELLED so much like Kikyo but everything about her stance, her voice and the even the glare she shot back at him was the dead priestesses opposite.  
  
"FUCK OFF!" This human was totally unafraid! It just wasn't right! He was stronger, and she obviously had no power what so ever or she would have been able to dispatch that pathetic centipede youkai. But instead of cowering like she should she bellowed a string of colorful obscenities into his face and made a rude gesture at him.  
  
"That's right Amber! Do not give Inuyasha the jewel! He will wreak more havoc on us then Lady Centipede could ever dream of!" Kaede helped the bloody girl to her feet and fixed a one eyed glare on Inuyasha's snarling face.  
  
Amber clutched the jewel to her chest and Inuyasha got the message. The stupid human was not going to surrender Shikon No Tama without a fight. Well he'd give her a fight if she wanted one so badly, after he ripped her arm off and took the jewel from her severed hand perhaps she'd think twice before she picked another fight with a hanyou like him.  
  
"I'm growing tired of waiting, and tired of your stink. Either hand it over or face the consequences." The threat only seemed to make this human angry. Her scratched face creased with a frown and she pushed Kaede away.  
  
"Why don't you come over here and get it biscuit-breath?" She snarled at him waving the sacred jewel at him like a trainer baits a hungry dog. The jest made very little sense to him but he caught the idea that it was slur about his dog-demon blood.  
  
"I will then!" Inuyasha felt the power build in his legs as he leapt, his stiff muscles functioning well for having been suspended and motionless for fifty years. The girl glared at him as he began his decent. She was good as dead.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber dodged Inuyasha in the nick of time, realizing how stupid it was to bait him. She'd just seen the man destroy a giant centipede demon for Christ Sakes! Why on gods green earth had she started picking a fight with him? Her temper was out to kill her.  
  
The whistle of arrows and spears flying through the air distracted Inuyasha enough to let his quarry scramble away from him, she stumbled and scrapped the skin off her cheek against the sharp gravelly earth. The day was not making a good impression on her. She seemed to be bleeding quite a bit.  
  
Amber stood up sharply looking for what she hoped would be a silver haired boy bristling with arrows and falling down. Instead she saw Inuyasha leap above the spears and smash the arrows with one swipe of his sharp claws. The arrogant bastard laughed and with another slash of his claws he toppled two of the large trees down on the assembled archers.  
  
"You idiots think you can destroy me like I did the centipede? Not a chance in hell!" He laughed and jumped up onto the stumps of the trees where he stood like he was mounted on the Olympic Podium.  
  
"Priestess Kaede! I think we were better off with the centipede!" Tanjiro had pulled the aging woman away from Inuyasha's falling trees and his words carried across the clearing to where Amber clutched the Shikon Jewel.  
  
"SHUT UP TAN-JERKO!" Amber bellowed she brandished the fist that clutched the jewel at him before she realized how insanely stupid that insult was. "I MEAN . . . OH JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU PREHISTORIC IMBECILE!"  
  
Kaede shook her head as Inuyasha turned back to the angry teenager. The girl was nothing like what the Guardian of the Shikon Jewel should be like. She was hot headed, obnoxious and disrespectful. But at least she could stand up to Inuyasha like she needed to. As the aging priestess drew the beads of containment out of her robes she sighed. "I had a feeling I would need these." She muttered.  
  
Amber had opted for a dignified retreat. Which meant, in layman's terms, she'd turned and began to run like all hell was following her through the trees. She wove in and out of the trees, trying to confuse him and succeeding in confusing herself.  
  
"Better prepare yourself you filthy human." The voice that rang through the trees was dark and threatening. Amber leapt over one of the large tree roots barring her path, her toes scraping its top and throwing her off balance.  
  
"For what? Are you going to hump my leg or something?" She spat at him as she stumbled to a stop. She could see a wooden bridge through the trees before her and made her way towards it as Inuyasha laughed somewhere in the trees.  
  
"No way. As much as you'd love that I think I'll just tear your throat out instead." She didn't dare glance behind her but she felt Inuyasha's claws pierce her flesh as he leapt on her back. Their momentum's combined violently and sent them both tumbling across the ground, Inuyasha tore another strip down her back and Amber delivered a well aimed kick to his groin before she managed to gouge her thumb into one of his golden eyes and roll away from his lethal attacks.  
  
"Oh my god where is the JEWEL?" Amber thought as she scanned the clearing. She caught sight of it barely a foot away from the ferociously swearing Inuyasha and darted forward, violently stomping on his hand to keep him from snatching it away.  
  
Kaede appeared at the lip of the clearing, her hand on a stitch forming in her side. She spoke the spell and the containment beads surged with power before they shifted their position, from her hands to Inuyasha's neck.  
  
"Amber! Speak the word of subjugation!" She yelled as Inuyasha dragged himself to his feet, his eyes flashing with rage.  
  
"I AM NOT A FUCKING DICTIONARY KAEDE! SPEAK ENGLISH!" Amber dodged Inuyasha's attack and the enraged demon crashed into the tree behind her.  
  
"A word that will bind him! A word of SUBJUGATION AMBER! THINK!" Kaede watched dismayed as Amber dodged Inuyasha again. Kaede gasped as the purple jewel flew out of her hand, the fading sunlight sparkling off its unmarked surface.  
  
With a cry of triumph Inuyasha leapt, whooping with laughter. He landed on the wooden bridge and watched as the Shikon jewel completed it's arc and bounced towards him.  
  
Amber looked around desperately. Subjugation. She remembered that word from somewhere. She watched Inuyasha kneel to scoop up Shikon No Tama. Suddenly it clicked! Of course! That stupid word she'd had to spell out and define in English class last week!  
  
As Inuyasha shoot her a broad grin the perfect word popped into Amber Lote's head and stuck there like the sweetest butterscotch. Inuyasha's condemning ears pricked forward as she shouted the words.  
  
"SIT BOY!" Inuyasha slammed into the bridge. The ropes groaned and the wood splintered as Amber limped over and easily picked up the jewel.  
  
"WHAT THE HELL? YOU CAN'T . . ." Inuyasha roared as she walked away with his treasure in her bloody palm.  
  
"SIT!" She commanded again. Again his face smashed against the bridge, almost breaking the wood. Amber grinned evilly as Inuyasha pulled at the beads of containment.  
  
"NO! WHY WON'T THEY COME OFF?" He shouted desperately.  
  
"They are magic beads Inuyasha." Kaede informed him. "Now ye are bound to Amber by that word. No matter how far away she is when she says it ye will always be contained by the word 'sit.'"  
  
"You crazy old bag! I would go over there and kill you if you didn't look half dead already!" Inuyasha shouted at the old priestess, still half- heartedly tugging at the beads.  
  
"Now, now dog boy. It simply isn't polite to speak to Kaede like that." Amber grinned wickedly. "I think you should SIT down and apologize."  
  
The third sit was too much for the old bridge. As Inuyasha smashed down against the planks they gave way and he plummeted into the river beyond.  
  
"Damned if I didn't just chuckle." Kaede thought to herself as she helped Amber find her way through the trees. The battle and blood loss seemed to finally be taking an effect on the girl and as a sopping Inuyasha pulled himself out of the river behind them Kaede grinned even wider. "Perhaps this wildling isn't as bad as I thought."  
  
"SIT!" Amber commanded again and Inuyasha slammed back into the water.  
  
"Well," Kaede amended, "she needs a little work."  
  
~IY~  
  
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." Amber winced as Kaede rubbed a salve over her wounds. She'd come out of her first day in feudal Japan a little worse for wear. Her legs were scrapped raw, her elbows and arms scratched and scabbing over, not mentioning the slashes Inuyasha's claws had left, even excluding the chunk Lady Centipede had taken out of her side Amber was more beaten up then she'd ever been in her life.  
  
"Ye have been repeating that for the past four hours and it has not lessened the pain. Ye might as well be silent and let me finish your stitches." Kaede scolded as she carefully wove the needle to patch up Inuyasha's violent handy work.  
  
"Yeah whatever." Amber growled as fresh pain shot through the wounds. "You were telling me about the Shikon Jewel."  
  
"Best be wary child. Demons and petty villains will be drawn to it's magic. Keep it close and do not stray too far from protection or they may kidnap ye." She finished Amber's back and began tying a mass of fresh bandages around her. "Ye will heal well with my salves to help ye. There shall not even be scars to mark ye."  
  
"Demons and petty people will try and steal it from me . . . hmm. Could that be why you're still here?" She asked Inuyasha as she emerged from the covering of the hanging sheet that had shielded her, up to her neck in thick bandages. He lay on the floor, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed lazily.  
  
"I'm just waiting for that jewel." He replied looking over at her. "Nice look. Very sexy."  
  
"Eat shit and die moron." Amber snarled back.  
  
Kaede shook her head as Inuyasha opened his mouth to start another fight. Villagers had been complaining about the two of them and their fighting that was keeping babies on the other side of the village awake. "Here Amber, I'll help ye with your shirt." She managed to cut off the fight in time and Inuyasha went back to his laziness.  
  
She had given Amber a man's tunic since she insisted robes and women's gown were completely worthless. Amber extended her arms and Kaede helped her slip the rough fabric over her body and do up the belt.  
  
"Do not worry yourself about Inuyasha." She said quietly. "He is bitter because he is robbed of his power around ye."  
  
"I AM NOT ROBBED OF MY POWERS!" Inuyasha stood up suddenly and glared at the two of them. Bad move.  
  
"SIT!" Amber commanded her voice dripping with glee. The scene had been repeated many times over the last few hours. Amber seemed to find it immensely amusing.  
  
"Amazing it's just like magic isn't it?" She asked Kaede sarcastically. "Sit! Sit, sit, sittiy sit!"  
  
"Amber, control thy self. It will not pay to have Inuyasha angry with thee." Kaede cautioned as Inuyasha picked himself out of the large crater his repeated sitting had created.  
  
"And beside that ye are ruining the floor. It is getting late. Best we discuss your next course of action in the morning. You may sleep in the temple with me. Inuyasha I trust you still need no sleep?" Kaede turned away from the hanyou.  
  
"Of course I don't I'm a half demon." Inuyasha replied angrily. As the two of them left the primitive building that served as a hospital Kaede shook her head.  
  
"He never has had any manners." She thought to herself as she led the still limping Amber towards the temple at the end of the village road.  
  
~IY~  
  
Inuyasha crept into the temple, his eyes trained on the sleeping form of Amber Lote. He would steal the jewel if he could, but he'd seen her hide it down the front of her bandages when she'd gone to sleep and he wasn't about to risk probing around in there.  
  
He watched her silhouette and scowled as she rolled onto her stomach and sighed. He didn't like her at all but he had to admit. She was beautiful, just like Kikyo had been.  
  
Inuyasha shook his head as he heard the shuffling of feathers. He instantly went on alert as the scent of carrion bird drifted in with that of other crows. He circled around the temple until he found them, clustered in a large tree, their beady eyes trained on the body of the girl he'd just been watching.  
  
"Go on get!" Inuyasha whispered harshly leaping silently up among the branches, scattering the murder of crows. "You're only here because you sense that jewel. You're vultures, all of you."  
  
He turned back to gaze through the window at the gentle curve of Amber's form under the blanket. "But then, why am I hanging around anyway?" He asked himself as he settled himself in the branches of the tree.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber had woken early and found the village still asleep, even the roosters weren't yet crowing atop the small hen houses so Amber took the time to fish a cigarette out of her tattered bag. She had the decency to go outside before she lit her smoke and she sighed as she looked out across the silent village. It was so quiet she could barely stand it. She forced her swollen feet into her boots and finished her cigarette before stealing off towards the forest where the well was built. Kaede's warning of demons and thieves a million miles away.  
  
The wood was waking by the time she reached its protective embrace. She could hear the stirring of the dawn birds and a few brave young creatures had begun their trilling up in the higher branches where the dawns' sparse rays had begun to warm the leaves. You didn't get mornings like this is the middle of Seattle. The noise never ended and night seemed to drag on until lunch on the better days and supper on the bad ones. But then, where she came from almost every one was either high or drunk so that added to the over all gutter trash aura of her earlier life.  
  
Amber reached the Bone Eaters well and knelt beside it, thinking about what to do. The well would probably carry her back to her own time if she crawled back in but what did she have to look forward to on the other side? If she went back she'd be shipped right on back to Seattle at the end of December and spend her time avoiding her mother and smoking dope with some friends whose names she barely even knew. Here she was the guardian of a hunk of glass that would attract people like Inuyasha. There didn't seem to be a winning side to this argument.  
  
Inuyasha. If there was one person in the world she couldn't figure out it was he. She prided herself on being able to see what anyone wanted from her when they started talking. Her mom wanted to be left alone, as did her step dad, Kaede wanted her to protect this jewel and the villagers wanted her to leave and stop bringing demons to their streets. She could tell if a guy wanted sex, or was on a dare or was really interested when they talked to her, could tell if someone was lying or stealing, but Inuyasha . . . well she just didn't GET him. And it bothered her more then she'd admit.  
  
She wasn't sure how long she knelt beside that well before she heard the sounds of men approaching her from the trees. Village men she reasoned. Kaede probably sent them. But as their mottled dirt caked forms broke away from the bushes Amber realized that they were definitely NOT from Kaede's village.  
  
They were thick bodied and brutish, their cork-knuckled hands gripped large clumsy weapons and they lumbered towards her like flat-footed cattle, their beady stupid eyes lolling around idiotically.  
  
"Is this the one Seiji?" The biggest of the five intruders asked the one who led them.  
  
"Looks like her." Seiji replied with a nod.  
  
Amber got quickly to her feet. They laughed as she took a fighter's stance. She didn't fancy her chances against one of these brutes but she wasn't about to let them steal her away to become the concubine of some bandit lord like in a raunchy old B-movie.  
  
"Now, now honey." Seiji said calmly. "Do you want to do this the hard way or the easy way?"  
  
Amber opened her mouth to comment on his lame threats and cuss his bandit ass into the ground but was stopped by the crack of a katana hilt against her skull. Someone had sneaked up on her! As the darkness boiled around her Amber heard Seiji's mocking voice as he answered his own question.  
  
"The easy way." He said as he laughed at her.  
  
Then it all went dark.  
  
~IY~  
  
When Amber awoke it was to the blurry faces of Seiji and his large friends. There was a smaller bandit, this one a female, sitting in the corner and twirling a katana easily, no doubt the lethal weapon that had rendered her unconscious. Amber opened her mouth and swore as sharp pain shot through her skull, making her eyes water. She seemed cursed, in the feudal age, to suffer severe bodily harm every time she went outside.  
  
"She's . . . duh . . . awake!" The biggest one yelled hoarsely. He leapt up and pulled her off the floor by grabbing a handful of her hair and yanking.  
  
"OW! LET ME DOWN YOU DUMB FUCK!" Amber screamed at him trying to claw at his dull, beady eyes.  
  
"Duh . . . okay!" He replied and promptly dumped her back on her ass.  
  
Seiji laughed and slapped his small, wiry friend on the back. "If you didn't give her a headache Torii, Hiroshi surely did." He crowed as Torii lost her grip on the sword and shot a harsh glare at Seiji.  
  
"Remove that hand before you lose it." He demanded in a low and dangerous voice. Seiji seemed to be used to such threats and well aware that she was not bluffing, he did remove his hand, so quickly he almost struck himself in the face.  
  
Seiji was quiet and Amber took the opportunity to pick herself up and glare at the woman bandit. "So your name's Torii then? And you're the one that hit me on the head?"  
  
Torii glared at Seiji. "I TOLD you not to mention my name." She snarled at him.  
  
"Oh come off your high horse Torii." The offending man grumbled, rubbing a long scar that ran down his cheek. "It's not like she's going to be able to tell anyone what your name is."  
  
Torii smacked him hard in the back of the head with the flat edge of her newly retrieved sword. As Seiji yelled and almost fell off his chair she smacked him again, under the chin before she traced her blade along the scar he'd been rubbing. "I have my reasons." She informed him. "And I don't want them questioned by the likes of you."  
  
Seiji was silent and he shot Torii a dark look when she turned away to pull a tight mask over the lower half of her face.  
  
"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION DIP SHIT!" Amber exploded. The stress of the last two days seemed to be slowly consuming her mind, even she would normally have enough sense to keep her tongue in her mouth.  
  
"You figure it out genius. You were hit by a sword I have a sword, you were attacked by six people, I'm the only one you didn't see, you were snuck up on, Seiji and Hiroshi couldn't sneak up on a deaf old man in the middle of a thunder storm. Connect the dots." Torii had gone back to toying with her katana and she regarded Amber with her dark, almost navy blue eyes. She wasn't Japanese, her skin wasn't the right color and her hair was a rich coppery shade, like freshly minted pennies. Amber couldn't place her but she was definitely dangerous and as Amber glared at her she could see a deep aggression in those blue eyes. She chose not to continue the argument with Torii.  
  
"Why did you kidnap me?" She asked Hiroshi. Stupid people were the easiest way to access information.  
  
"We only do what boss tells us to do." He replied scratching his head. "Don't make no sense though. Usually he tell us to go kill people and burn things." He smacked her on the shoulder, the action enough to drive Amber to her knees. "You must be special or somethin'."  
  
Amber was about to shoot out a smart remark but was silenced by Torii's sudden movement. She'd slid off the table she'd been sitting on and looked around, her eyes wide before whispering 'the boss is coming' and disappearing out the door. Seiji sent a harsh curse after his colleagues retreating back and turned, as Amber became aware of the sounds of heavy footfalls in the hall beyond where she was being contained with the three bandits.  
  
The man who entered the room reminded her of the troll in those movies about the teenaged wizard. In Larry Plodder or whatever they were called, she could remember the scene where they'd fought a huge lumpy troll and if there was a creature on earth or heaven that the bandit leader resembled it was the Larry Plodder troll.  
  
He was massive! He was positively enormous! Amber could feel herself shrink into her shoes as he squeezed himself through the doorway. For one of the first times in her life Amber's voice died in her throat and no smart-ass remarks floated into her dazed mind. She stood and stared at this bulk of human flesh until Seiji pushed her forward.  
  
"Here she is boss." He said, a note of fear resonating through his voice. "Just like you wanted."  
  
~IY~  
  
"AMBER!" Kaede's call was lost in the depths of the wood. The old woman sighed and looked around, desperately. That stupid, irresponsible girl! Didn't she ever listen?  
  
"Of course she doesn't." Kaede sighed as she reached the well. "Life would just be to easy if she did."  
  
"Why are you looking for that pain in the ass anyway?" The casual voice of Inuyasha floated across the clearing from where he was lazily leaning against the well. Kaede glared at him suspiciously and approached.  
  
"Not all of us are as heartless as you Inuyasha. Amber may have her rough spots but she is a good person and deserves some appreciation. She survived a battle with you and Lady Centipede after all." Kaede surveyed the clearing before looking back to the well.  
  
"So where's the jewel? I know you didn't let her wander off with it." Inuyasha closed his eyes and leaned back, an arrogant smile on his face. He was so sure that Kaede had taken the jewel from Amber before she'd gone off and been kidnapped was he?  
  
"With Amber." Kaede replied simply.  
  
"WHAT?" His reaction gave the withered old priestess some satisfaction.  
  
"YOU LET THAT LITTLE... THAT LITTLE HUMAN JUST WANDER AWAY WITH SHIKON NO TAMA?" He was on his feet now his clawed hands balled into tight fists. "WHY I OUTTA..."  
  
"Go and rescue her." Kaede finished for him.  
  
"WHAT? WHY WOULD I DO THAT? THERE'S NOTHING IN IT FOR ME!" He glared at her before he grinned thinking she would give up.  
  
"Ye will not risk letting Shikon No Tama fall into another youkai's hands. Ye are too greedy for that. Go now Inuyasha and we'll never speak a word of how ye ran off to Amber's rescue like her noble protector." Kaede hid a smile as Inuyasha opened his mouth in anger, paused and then closed it again. He glared at her again before sighing in defeat.  
  
"Fine you old bag. But if you ever even mention this again to anyone..." He let the end of his sentence drift off ominously and Kaede just smiled to herself as he glared at her.  
  
Taking her silence as his promise the red cloaked half-demon turned sharply on his heel and stomped away through the thick trees, his long hair billowing out like an angry silver cloud as he walked.  
  
Such fire! The both of them had such raw unbridled fire in their souls that it almost burned Kaede's eye to behold it. She often wondered if she should have taken the jewel from Amber. She was sure the girl would have given it freely and happily returned back to the world she came from. Kaede sighed and started back towards the village, for better or worse Amber was Shikon No Tama's protector now, and Inuyasha her own personal... guard dog.  
  
Kaede replayed the last thought in her mind. The laughter finally burst out of her age cracked lips and giggling like a giddy young child she made her way back to the village.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Oh dear god." The stench of the bandit leader wafted through the closed space and made Amber's nose wrinkle with distaste. The troll like bandit looked at her blankly, his dull beetle black eyes bearing down on her.  
  
"Give me the jewel." He demanded woodenly holding out his huge, cork- knuckled hand to her. He watched her expectantly as though he thought she was going to wiggle her magic fingers and produce Shikon No Tama from thin air.  
  
"NO!" She declared loudly. His size was intimidating but as result of the blank and slightly apish look he gave her Amber failed to be frightened by his OBVIOUSLY very prominent brain.  
  
The leader opened his mouth, closed it again and screwed up his beady little eyes as if thinking hard. "Please?" He inquired piteously holding out his hand again.  
  
Amber looked at him blankly before she shook her head and put one hand over the chain that held the Shikon No Tama around her neck under the thick pack of bandages. The bandit leader scowled and reached for his sword, a monstrously huge block of dull steel that looked better suited for bludgeoning people to death then cutting them up.  
  
The enormous man grunted a few words of insult before he swung his huge weapon at the small girl. Amber easily dodged his clumsy attack, rolling across the floor and coming to a stop at Hiroshi's feet. The angry bandit lord howled with rage and swung his sword again, missing Amber and striking Hiroshi instead.  
  
As the leader swerved around looking for his quarry Amber scrambled around him, pulling the jewel out of the front of her bandages. A quick tug of her hand plucked the thin chain from around her neck and she spun away from another wild swing, feeling the tight stitches on her back begin to tear. There was way too much pain involved with guarding this piece of colored glass.  
  
The leader was livid was anger and his next attempt at butchering the small girl hit one of the many support pillars that held up the roof. As a section of ceiling burst free, spraying Amber with dust and wood chips. She swore viciously as her monstrously ugly attacker turned on her.  
  
He laughed and bent down. "Puny creature." He chortled through his yellow teeth. Amber responded by throwing a fistful of sawdust into his little piggy black eyes. He howled with pain and stumbled backwards, his fat fingers clawing at the clinging dust. Amber threw the jewel out of the window quickly, hoping that would insure its relative safety and turned to the speechless bandits, grouped around the lifeless mound of flesh that had been Hiroshi.  
  
"RUN YOU IDIOTS!" She screamed at them, heading for the door herself. They blinked at her like scared deer before turning and surging towards the doors, their thick bodies clogging the only route of escape, save the door that led only deeper into the bandit headquarters.  
  
"HELP ME!" The pathetic scream of Seiji, the bandit that had kidnapped her in the first place pierced Amber's musings on who would find her mangled body. The ugly man was trapped beneath the fallen ceiling; his arms pinned to his sides, leaving nothing but his desperate face poking through the rubble.  
  
"God damn my conscience." Amber thought as she hurried to his side keeping her eye on the still howling bandit lord, the sawdust seemed to have become a barrier that he could not overcome.  
  
Amber pushed a thick board away from Seiji and helped him struggle out of the dusty wreckage of the collapsed ceiling, swearing at him to hurry up. As he lurched to his feet the terrifying giant bandit whirled around and snatched Amber off the floor, ripping the bandages that circled her chest and opening the wound Lady Centipede had left in her side.  
  
"GIVE IT TO ME!" He roared. He lifted his sword and Amber thought for one delirious second about the chocolate cake Souta's mother had promised her when she got back from school yesterday, before she'd been dragged down the well. Man was chocolate cake ever preferable to this situation.  
  
"PUT HER DOWN!" The rough yell came from behind Amber's back and as she twisted to see who it was she felt herself being tossed aside by the bandit leader. She landed roughly, though not painfully and sprang to her feet.  
  
Inuyasha stood, framed in the doorway for a minute before darting forward, his amber eyes glowing with terrifying fire. He easily plucked the giant sword from the lumpy mans thick hand and tossed it aside grinning.  
  
"Nice choice." He congratulated the leader insanely. "But not good enough." And with those words the white haired half demon tore his attacker in two.  
  
In a furry of feathers Amber watched what appeared to be a three-eyed raven claw its way out of the huge mans remains. The creature cawed harshly at the offending Inuyasha before taking off through the window, leaving the stinking heap of flesh festering away in the center of the room.  
  
"WHAT WAS THAT?" Amber asked running over to Inuyasha and staring out to where the bird was pecking away at the soil.  
  
"Nothing but a carrion bird. No big deal unless their really big." Inuyasha replied coolly, wiping his bloody claws off on the big mans tunic. "Lucky I was here to save you, or you would have been troll food." God was he ever pleased with himself.  
  
Amber watched the bird wondering vaguely what it had in its mouth. As it hopped away she tuned into Inuyasha's smug ramblings long enough to calm her pounding heart.  
  
"So where is the jewel anyway?" Inuyasha asked casually.  
  
Amber reached instinctively for the bulge under her bandages. She'd forgotten. The bandages were in tatters around her waist and the jewel... Amber felt a sick feeling growing in her stomach. "No bid deal unless their really big..." The words rang in her ears as the Shikon Jewel caught the sunlight from where it was clamped in the carrion birds beak.  
  
"THE BIRD HAS IT!" She screamed.  
  
"WHAT?" Inuyasha roared, he ran to the window beside her as the bird took flight. "YOU STUPID LITTLE... OH JUST FORGET IT AND COME ON!"  
  
He motioned for her to climb onto his back. Amber looked at him like he was insane for a minute and he sighed angrily.  
  
"We don't have time to argue. Just get on and keep a good grip. If you fall off I'm not going to stop for you." Amber sighed and again thought about the warm kitchen in her own time where she would have been eating breakfast if not for that damn centipede, and scooped up a bow and quiver from where the panicking bandits had dropped it. She couldn't use it but she might as well have some sort of weapon.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Can you see it?" Amber squinted ahead, one hand shielding her eyes and the other gripping her steeds' long silver-white mane.  
  
"Yes!" She shouted as she caught sight of the black smear of the thieving carrion bird against the sky. "I think it swallowed the jewel."  
  
Indeed the bird was almost ten times as big as it had been before it had stolen the precious jewel and its stink of rotten flesh had amplified along with it, the smell making Amber gag as it blew into her face. Inuyasha cursed as his jump began its decent and they broke back through the canopy of forest leaves and into the shadowy realm beneath.  
  
"You'll have to shoot it." He yelled as he ran along the grassy path.  
  
"What?" Amber screamed clutching the bow. "I've never touched one of these in my life."  
  
Inuyasha jumped over a protruding root in the path before him. "Listen, I don't know how much Kaede told you about this but I've figured most of it out for myself. How much do you know about the woman named Kikyo?"  
  
"Kaede told me that she was her sister and she was the priestess that sealed you to the tree." Amber yelled back. "But she died so what does SHE have to do with any of this?"  
  
"Did she tell you how much you look like her?" Inuyasha asked leaping above the treetops and scanning the sky for their quarry. They were gaining, the black smudge of feathers beginning to take form against the harsh blue bowl of the sky.  
  
"Yeah, so what?" Amber asked angrily.  
  
"You're her reincarnation stupid. Why else would you have had Shikon No Tama in your side?" He shifted her up on his back until she was sitting on his shoulders and gripped her knees tightly. "Kikyo was a master archer. Now don't argue or ask questions just shoot!"  
  
He leapt again and Amber strung the bow, firing clumsily. How could she be the reincarnation of some dead priestess? It didn't make any sense.  
  
"Come on you worthless little human! Hit the damn bird!" Inuyasha snarled as Amber's second shot whizzed off into the trees.  
  
"I CAN'T!" She shouted as they began sinking back into the trees. She could see the village, perhaps half a kilometer away in the trees, and felt the cold wave of dread wash through her as the carrion bird cawed. Inuyasha glowered at her as they landed and dumped her roughly off his back.  
  
"You're useless." He growled before taking off alone through the trees. Amber struggled to her feet and tore off her shirt. The mess of bandages that hung around her waist inched and chafed her as she tore them off, using them to roughly wipe the thick blood that had dried along her side. She hastily pulled her shirt back on and abandoned the useless wrappings before taking off after Inuyasha. For once in her life Amber Lote just wanted to go home.  
  
She broke through the trees and scrambled down the steep path that led to the village. The villagers were milling around in panic as the dark shadow of the carrion bird swooped overhead. Amber searched the crowds, calling Kaede's name but instead was met by the sight of the huge bird scooping up one of the little boys and flying out over the rivers.  
  
"Carrion birds feast on the flesh of humans." She remembered Inuyasha explaining as they'd ran through the trees. The bird was flying off the shrieking child clutched in its talons.  
  
Amber could feel the hopelessness bite into her as effectively as the flesh and blood fangs of Lady Centipede. It seemed that there was no stopping the enormous black menace. It was going to kill that boy, and then destroy the rest of the village.  
  
"Inuyasha!" She screamed. He needed to save that little boy! And as if on cue, the red flash of his clothing lit the sky and met the horrible bird. Claws flashed as the two fought, Inuyasha's lethal claws shrieking as they wove through the air. He easily cut his adversary to pieces, ignoring the boy as he plummeted into the river, still gripped by the carrion birds' claw.  
  
Amber thanked god that she knew how to swim as she dived into the fast running river. She wasn't very good at it, her front stroke was wonky at best but she managed to flounder towards the boy and grab hold of him. He was crying and hitting the severed birds' foot weakly as though that would cause it to release him.  
  
"Amber you idiot! Look for the jewel, not for the boy!" Inuyasha was standing on the bank, watching the water for any sign of the round purple gem.  
  
Amber ignored him and pulled the sobbing boy to the shore, her feet sinking deeply into the muddy shore. She growled as the boys' mother ran forward and easily tore the foot off his clothing. The foot was still twitching unpleasantly and Amber turned to Inuyasha to bellow a comment at him for being an insensitive fuck when she saw what was happening above the water.  
  
Amber swore as the scattered pieces of the carrion bird began to reassemble themselves, their jagged creases melting back together, as easily as someone would glue together a broken statue. She kept a firm grip on the foot that was trying to break free of her hand and scrambled up the steep slope to where she'd dropped her newly acquired bow and arrows. There was one last thing she could try. So what if she'd seen it in a movie once?  
  
Amber tore a strip off her shirt and used it to tightly bind the writhing foot to one of her arrows. If the carrion bird was gathering the pieces of its body together it made sense that the foot would bring the arrow right to the bird along with it. Amber strung the bow easily and took aim. The bird was turning, spiraling around, searching for another victim. Amber let fly the arrow and watched it as it flew through the air towards the approaching bird.  
  
"You'll never hit it!" Inuyasha yelled, just as the arrow met the bird, head on in the air and flew through its third eye.  
  
There was a vicious hissing sound, like when water is thrown upon red hot metal and the carrion bird exploded. There was nothing subtle about the creatures' death. It veered to the left, screeching like a thing possessed before it burst, in a brilliant flash of white light and spiraling purple sparks. Amber smiled smugly at the dumbfounded Inuyasha.  
  
"Well come on then dog breath, let's find the freaking jewel." She said before running off to search the forest where the bird had met its end.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Well you've successfully lost the jewel." Inuyasha snarled as he cut away a fern bush to look within. "We've been searching all day and haven't found anything."  
  
Amber ignored the rude comment and looked around. It was somewhere around here. She could feel it's presence, an odd sensation but unmistakable by all standards. She looked up through the trees to the swiftly darkening skies and sighed. Where was the damn gem?  
  
"Maybe we should keep looking in the morning." She said turning to the angry half demon.  
  
"No way am I letting you just abandon the jewel." He snarled back. "Make yourself useful and look why don't you?"  
  
Amber sighed and bent down, rummaging through the ferny undergrowth for any glimmer of purple. She could feel its presence growing. It seemed to be coming from somewhere above her. Amber looked up and squinted, searching the dark branches. Two beady eyes and one ruined socket stared back at her.  
  
"INUYASHA!" She screamed stumbling back as the head of the carrion bird flew towards her, it's jagged beak snapping horribly.  
  
The half demon dispatched it easily, almost negligently with a quick slash of his claws. Amber sighed, then froze as a bright sliver of purple glass fell from the birds lifeless shreds. She bent and picked it up, wiping it on her shirt. "Oh no." She whispered staring at the shard.  
  
"What is that?" Inuyasha demanded as she closed her hand over the jewel shard.  
  
"It's a shard of Shikon No Tama." Amber replied turning to face him.  
  
He looked as if he didn't believe her, but when the look on her face did not change his disbelieving smile melted away. She saw the rage build up in his face and prepared herself to sit him if need be. But he didn't attack her instead he threw his head back and screamed.  
  
Far away in the village the people preparing for bed heard the angry scream of a half demon warrior as his only hope splintered before his eyes but he didn't have much to say.  
  
"I HATE YOU AMBER!"  
  
~`~`~`~` 


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole and Back Again

Amber Lote winced as she washed the rapidly healing wound in her side. Kaede's wonderful salves had really helped with her various scratches and pains. She stood waist deep in the cold water of the tributary that fed down into the ocean carefully testing the ruby red flesh that had once been a gapping hole.  
  
She was healing well, the only things that ever bothered her anymore where the gashes on her back that Kaede had been unable to repair through stitching and had resigned to burning closed, an extremely painful process that had required several village men to hold her patient down. But even these were healing over now and Amber was able to enjoy a long bath in the cold water.  
  
"Come out of there Amber, before ye catch yer death of cold." The rough call of the aforementioned priestess cut through the morning air and Amber decided not to argue. She'd managed to get herself clean as possible without proper soap, she was no longer caked with sweat and blood and that was enough of an improvement.  
  
Amber clambered out of the water and rung out her hair, not bothering with a towel she let the warm sun caress her flesh and stretched painfully.  
  
A rustling sound caught her attention and drew her eyes to the bushed across from where she stood, near where a small waterfall fed the still pond Amber had been washing in. The telltale golden eyes and white dogs ears pricked forward as the naked girl caught sight of their owner nestled among the foliage.  
  
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Amber screamed grabbing up the towel to shield herself. She hurled the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be a metal pot Kaede had used to boil her salves that morning, at his head and grabbed the clothes Kaede had set out for her.  
  
Inuyasha caught the pot in the head and fell down the slope, landing rather ungracefully in the water. He surfaced sputtering madly and tried to climb up onto the rock ledges by the waterfall.  
  
"SIT!" The angry girl shouted from where she was struggling into her pants, her face red with embarrassment. Inuyasha plunged back into the water as Amber pulled her bra on and glowered at his form under the water.  
  
"What was that for?" He shouted spitting out a fountain.  
  
"GUESS!" Amber replied, now fully dressed. Her face was dark and stormy and her eyebrows nearly met at the bridge of her nose as she glowered at him. Kaede looked up with a smile that was banished the minute she saw Amber in those clothes. Any doubts she might have had about Amber being her calm, level headed sister reborn were banished in an instant as someone who was Kikyo but was also not Kikyo sat her lost love once again as he clambered up onto the shore.  
  
"THAT HURTS YOU KNOW!" Inuyasha bellowed at his fuming partner as he pulled his face out of the mold it had made in the wet earth. He clawed the clinging bits of sand off his face and shook his head to clear his ears of water.  
  
"THAT'S THE IDEA DIP SHIT!" Amber bellowed right back, she managed to prevent herself from sitting him again but continued right along with the swearing. "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING UP THERE ANYWAY YOU PERVERTED BASTARD?"  
  
"CALM DOWN! THE ONLY REASON I CAME WAS..." He seemed to realize what he was about to say an instant to soon.  
  
"TO STEAL THE JEWEL? OH GREAT, I EXPECTED A THIEF BUT NOW I HAVE A PERVERTED THIEF?" Amber angrily turned away from the wet half demon and came to sit by the chuckling old priestess.  
  
"Ye will need to work together if ye can ever hope to find all the jewel shards." She informed them sagely as she stood wearily and gathered the herbs Amber had helped her pick that morning. Amber was not a promising gardener as she had taken to swearing at the weeds as she was hoeing and hitting them with the gardening tools that really did more harm to the herbs than the weeds. "Only Amber will be able to find the shards and only Inuyasha possesses the strength to take them back."  
  
"Well I'm still here ain't I?" Inuyasha snarled. "I'll put up with anything to get that jewel."  
  
Amber was struck by the desire to sit his face into the fire but controlled it at a warning look from Kaede. The grisly old priestess seemed to already be aware of how Amber's mind functioned when she was around people she disliked. "Why don't you just shut the fuck up dog man." She said instead of speaking the word that would plunge his face into the hot coals.  
  
Inuyasha looked up at her, no doubt to say something nasty in response, but his voice died suddenly in his throat and he just stared at the pretty girl seated across the fire from him.  
  
"What the hell are you looking at?" Amber snarled catching his look. She was dressed in large loose garments that greatly resembled Kaede's and her hair was done back in a loose ponytail.  
  
"Nothing it's just..." He trailed off and Amber looked at him strangely. For a moment he seemed a million miles away before he was brought back by Amber's rude snort of laughter.  
  
"Whatever Barbie boy." She muttered shaking her head.  
  
~IY~  
  
Yura woke silently, her lips too parched to speak the name of the fire bright orb she'd been dreaming off. She smiled wickedly and wet them with her tongue, looking about the softly lit chamber she dwelt within.  
  
"Shikon No Tama!" She called into the darkness as though calling for a small dog. "You've resurfaced at last! I'd almost given up hope." The pretty woman stretched and sighed contentedly. "It sure took you long enough." She chided the far away jewel in a childish voice.  
  
She plucked her bright skull from the small space she'd made for it near her bed and began to brush its long hair as affectionately as a small child brushes the hair of her favorite doll, running her fingers through its silky length. As she readjusted her place on her bed one of the many skulls clattered down like a boulder down a hillside. Yura perched a top the mound of skulls and sighed. The resurfacing of Shikon No Tama was a grand thing indeed.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Priestess Kaede!" The woman's yell was all that saved the entire village from another long fight.  
  
Amber and Inuyasha stood across from each other, their hands balled into tight fists of fury as the regarded the other. Amber's hair was loose and framed her face that cackled with ominous thunder and Inuyasha tossed his own white mane and glowered, lightening leaping through his large golden eyes. It had all stemmed, as usual, from the pairs unending problem. The fact that each of them knew exactly how to push the other ones buttons.  
  
"What is it Akio?" Kaede turned away from the two angry young people and addressed the panicking woman. "What's the problem?"  
  
"It's my daughter." Akio cried, wringing her hands in distress. "I don't know what's happened to her." She pushed her wild hair out of her eyes and shot a scared look at the priestess' furious companions before continuing. "Please come and heal her."  
  
Kaede sighed and looked back at Amber and Inuyasha. Perhaps they needed to be left alone long enough for them to scream themselves hoarse and get all the insults out. Then again maybe Inuyasha would gut Amber if they were left alone or perhaps even vice-versa. But Akio sounded absolutely terrified by her daughters' sudden illness and Kaede had no choice but to decide to leave them alone.  
  
"I will come." She told the distraught woman, and to her companions, "and you two please try not kill each other."  
  
Inuyasha laughed a short joyless bark. "Yeah Amber'll kill me someday." He jeered roughly before Amber hit him again on the head with the pot Kaede had forced her to retrieve.  
  
"YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!" She screamed at him as he rubbed his sore head.  
  
"WELL YOU'RE NO BETTER!" He yelled back jumping to his feet and flexing his claws threateningly. Amber gripped the handle of the heavy steel cooking utensil like it was a weapon and glared at her adversary.  
  
Kaede sighed and turned away. She doubted either of them would be able to kill the other. Amber still had the power to contain Inuyasha and Inuyasha had proved many times already he could defend himself against Amber's assaults that were vicious in their own right. "I'll return later." The old priestess sighed but she doubted they heard her, as they were busy screaming at each other again.  
  
~IY~  
  
"WELL AT LEAST I DON'T WATCH PEOPLE WHEN THEIR BATHING!" Amber retorted as Inuyasha cut loose another insult.  
  
"I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE BATHING!" He yelled back, a faint red tinge splashed over his cheeks.  
  
"YAH RIGHT! YOU'RE A TOTAL ASS YOU KNOW THAT?"  
  
"YOU'VE SAID IT ENOUGH TIMES THAT A MONKEY WOULD KNOW IT BY NOW!" Inuyasha bellowed back at her, his fist clenched in rage.  
  
Amber spat some obscenities that Inuyasha himself wouldn't have dared utter in another beings presence before sinking down near the fire and proceeding to scowl. The girl was an absolute brat! A completely immature and selfish little child.  
  
"Look you poor excuse for a demon." She growled, not meeting his eyes. "Kaede said we need to work together, and believe me I'm no happier about it then you are, but I can accept that we need to make peace with each other. We're going to be depending on each other if we're ever going to get that jewel." The entire compromise was pushed through her tightly gritted teeth that seemed to want to hold back any hope for advancement in this unholy union.  
  
"You're going to be depending on me you mean." He corrected her snobbishly. "You could go home right now and I wouldn't care."  
  
Amber thought about that for a minute before getting to her feet. She looked back at Inuyasha once more and began walking away down the path.  
  
"Where are you going?" Inuyasha asked angrily.  
  
"Home stupid." Amber replied casually. She smiled, finally making up her mind. The debate between the two worlds was finally over, she was running low on cigarettes and what did it matter to her what happened to Shikon No Tama anyway? It wasn't like a stupid hunk of glass was going to affect her life.  
  
"Wait a minute you can't..." Inuyasha began.  
  
"See that's where you're wrong." Amber said spinning on her heel. "I can very well go home. All I need to do is go back to that well in the forest and pull an Alice and the Rabbit Hole. It is you that 'can't'. That is you that cannot stop me in any way shape or form."  
  
Inuyasha looked at her for a minute, his face blank and his confusion obvious. Convinced she had completely lost the stupid boy Amber turned away to continue on her chosen path.  
  
"Hey!" Inuyasha snarled grabbing at her arm. He missed and grabbed her side, unwittingly uncovering Amber's most fiercely guarded secret.  
  
"Don't touch me there!" She commanded pulling away from his hand.  
  
"What? It's not like I groped you or something." He replied.  
  
"No I just don't like you touching me there." She answered angrily shielding her weak spot with one hand and her other side, still tender and red, with her other.  
  
Inuyasha looked puzzled for a minute before true realization dawned on him. He looked as a small child might if he were informed that Christmas was now every other day of the week as he leveled a finger at her and spoke his words of doom.  
  
"YOU HAVE A TICKLISH RIB DON'T YOU?"  
  
"............ No?"  
  
His attack was swift and brutal. He, to put it bluntly, leapt on her and began to tickle her mercilessly, taking some sort of pleasure to see her scream and flail in a state his threats and real attacks could never render her. She managed to bite his hand and began a kind of odd wiggle to try and get away. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back, her fingers making deep ruts in the soft ground, her legs flailing helplessly as he crushed her easily beneath him and continued tickling her.  
  
"Nopleasegodstopdontticklemeohgodthatwasnotmyside." Amber's words slurred together into an inane string of giggle punctuated frenzy as she tried to escape. She kicked at him, missing her unmentionable target and hitting his own side. He let go long enough for her to roll away and grab the thick, lethal rake that she'd been using to help Kaede in her herb garden.  
  
"Wait no don't use that!" Inuyasha gasped as she brandished it, red fury plastered all over her face.  
  
The tables had turned.  
  
"OW! THAT HURTS!" The first connection was into his already sore side. He thought that would be the end but the enraged teenager was angry beyond words and began chasing him around smacking him with the rake in various places.  
  
"Stop it!" He yelled. He turned abruptly and sliced the rake into tiny pieces. Amber stopped and looked first at him and then at the two ends of her weapon she held in her hands.  
  
"SIT!" She commanded. Inuyasha groaned for an instant before he face- planted into the ground. He lifted his head and spat out a mouth full of choking dust.  
  
"Where are you going now?" He yelled after her retreating back.  
  
"Home, like I was before you started tickling me." Amber shouted not turning around.  
  
"Yah? Well good riddance, ya loony!"* He shouted after her.  
  
She didn't turn around.  
  
"Bah." He growled bitterly, jamming his hands in his pockets. "Women."  
  
~IY~  
  
Kaede pushed aside the hanging cloth that divided the two rooms. The smell of incense hit her like a wall and she winced before going to the crumpled form of Akio's daughter, laying comatose on a pallet. The mother was babbling hysterically as the priestess bent over her daughters' helpless form.  
  
"I tried the incense but it didn't do anything, then I tried the salves, and the chants and all the things you suggested but she just lays there." Akio said hopelessly lost in her ramblings about inadequate medical treatments.  
  
Kaede put her hand over the girls pale forehead as Akio wrung her hands and worried her bottom lip between her teeth and watched.  
  
"She's running a high fever." Kaede confirmed opening the girls' mouth and looking for the greenish spots on the tongue that would have revealed Nordanak Fever. She found none. "I'm not sure exactly what she's got."  
  
Akio looked even more worried now that even Kaede didn't know what was infecting her daughter. "Will she live?" She asked hoarsely.  
  
"Oh I'm sure..." Kaede trailed off as a curious sound began to fill the small building. A sound like silken threads sliding over wood. She turned around and looked for some source of the curious sound and watched as the sick girl rose off the cot.  
  
"Sakura?" Akio asked as her daughter dangled above the floor like a marionette, her limbs limp and useless.  
  
"Akio, get behind me." Kaede commanded harshly, pushing the frail woman behind her.  
  
"Sakura I..." Kaede began hoping to reason with the girl. Her words were cut off however, as a wicked looking butchers knife flew to the girls hand and before the old woman could blink, Sakura had attacked.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber regretted her arrogance as she knelt beside the Bone Eaters well and looked at the many bones that lay strewn about inside it. The resting- place of monsters, Kaede had said it was called, full of dead things. Amber had thought about her plan more and more as she'd approached the well. It was really quite ridiculous. She expected to jump in the well and suddenly be back in modern day Tokyo?  
  
It worked one way though. What was to suggest it wouldn't work the other? Did magic have these laws like normal things? A logical assumption would be that the portal worked two ways but then a logical assumption would also rule out the very existence of the entire portal so she wasn't sure if logic was of any help at all. Time travel was complicated business.  
  
Amber sighed and looked up as a bird twittered away in a tree. The happy little creature sung brightly and its cheery mood made Amber want to throw something at it. She considered looking for a rock when something else caught her eye.  
  
It was a thread. Or that was what Amber thought at first as she lent over to examine it closer. No it was more like a hair. A very long hair no doubt, for it didn't seem to have a beginning or and end. And a very ominous hair as it was hanging for no apparent reason in the middle of a forest, but a hair none the less. Amber lent back against the well and for the first time recognized her predicament. A web of hair.  
  
There was hair everywhere. A huge living net of it surrounded her, the strands coming from the trees all around her and vanishing into shadows. There was something extremely odd about this. Well more odd then was usual in feudal Japan.  
  
"So you can see the hair net?" A pretty woman dressed in somewhat slutty clothes stood before her, a red sword sheathed at her side and her wide somewhat evil looking eyes fixed on her. She smiled wickedly and Amber watched as the hair began to move around her like living serpents. She stood quickly and faced the girl, who was barely an inch taller then herself.  
  
"Who the fuck are you?" Amber asked raising one eyebrow at her.  
  
The woman looked at her for a minute then threw back her head and laughed as though Amber's words were some great joke. As the strange woman laughed Amber could feel a heavy, unpleasant weight begin to grow in her stomach. She was going to get hurt again. She knew it.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Stupid girl and her 'beads of containment.' Who needs her anyway?" Inuyasha thought to himself as he ran towards the village. Maybe now that Amber had gone home Kaede would take the beads off and let him go find the jewel for himself.  
  
Inuyasha reached the village and landed gracefully. "I'm better off without her." He decided.  
  
The streets were deadly quiet as Inuyasha surveyed them looking for any sign of the villagers. He didn't like the sickly cloak of silence that had pulled itself over the village. It made him uneasy. Inuyasha cracked his knuckles to break the quiet and took a step down the road.  
  
The villagers finally appeared. The women, all suspended in the air as though they were dolls on the end of invisible strings, advanced; each clutching a weapon of decided ill intent.  
  
"Now are you otherwise sensible women going to pull an Amber and fight me?" He asked them boldly looking around. Each one looked as though they were asleep, unwillingly puppets for some unseen master.  
  
"Inuyasha!" The weak cry startled the hanyou and he turned to see Kaede dragging herself out of a nearby house. He leapt easily over the heads of the village women and landed beside her, the hot metallic smell of blood clouding his every sense.  
  
"You're hurt." He stated, somewhat alarmed by the deep wound along her shoulder.  
  
"Tell me something I do not know." She replied. "Inuyasha you must not hurt the village women. It is not their fault. They are being controlled against their wills."  
  
Inuyasha tossed his long silver hair and looked at the puppet women that had begun to drift listlessly towards them.  
  
"Well from the looks of it it's going to be us or them lady, and my vote's for them." He looked down at the helpless old woman.  
  
~IY~  
  
"My name," the strange woman said, "is Yura. Yura of the Demon Hair as I'm called." She smiled sweetly, a look that chilled Amber's blood. "But you needn't stake any effort on remembering that. You'll be dead soon anyway."  
  
In that instant Yura overtook Inuyasha as Amber's least favorite demon. Of course she didn't know many demons but still. She was worse then the arrogant dog man and that was something.  
  
Amber watched as with a negligent wave of her hand Yura sent a thick line of hairs towards her. She flinched back, but the hairs merely delicately plucked the bag that contained the single jewel shard from around Amber's neck.  
  
She smiled and opened it, emptying the tiny sliver of purple glass into her palm.  
  
"You BROKE it?" She asked disappointed. "How positively inconsiderate of you."  
  
"Well you know me, selfish to fault." Amber replied weakly, now officially freaked out by this whole situation.  
  
"Well where is the rest of it?" Yura asked testily replacing the shard.  
  
"How the fuck am I suppose to know? It shattered." Amber replied backing up until she was pressed against the well.  
  
"How rude." She chided waving her finger in Amber's face. She slipped the jewel bag around her neck and stepped back, drawing her sword from its sheath. "Well if you don't know then I'm afraid you're of no further use to me. Goodbye."  
  
Amber glanced behind her as Yura advanced and sighed. Psycho hair lady with a sword or untested time portal, this was one of those questions she's never thought she'd have to ask herself. But Yura solved the whole thing by lunging. Amber tried to dodge, lost her balance and fell through the mouth of the Bone Eaters well.  
  
Yura watched fascinated as the girl tumbled down the well, waiting for her to land on the bottom. If the fall didn't kill her Yura planned to pop down there and finish the job. But she never hit the bottom. Half way down the well her body was consumed by a burst of purple light, and Yura stood staring at the empty hole until she was entirely sure the mortal wasn't using some sort of trickery.  
  
"Well that's not fair." She commented, disappointed by the loss of her quarry. "She got away. And what a strange girl she was to." Yura tossed her hair and looked down into the well once more. "Oh well." She turned her mind away from the odd girl and back to the task at hand. Disposing of the village and recovering the sacred jewel.  
  
~IY~  
  
Yura had found a comfortable position in a tree where she could concentrate on her puppets, far away in the little village. She'd planned to use them to destroy the village and then take their skulls but she'd run into an odd situation. There was someone who was not under her control.  
  
"I'll just have to add you to my collection." She muttered to herself. She twisted her hands to work the hair and hoped she could hurry the process up a bit. This was simply far to a long a time to spend on one little village.  
  
~IY~  
  
"The hair Inuyasha! Look for the hair!" Kaede's yell fell on helpless ears as the dog demon looked at the surrounding women.  
  
"WHAT HAIR?" He asked looking around bewildered. His adversaries made no sound as they advanced, the menacing weapons clutched in their hands. He glanced around nervously, but the attack didn't come from the strange villagers.  
  
The feeling was that of ropes being attached to his every limb. He felt them pull tight and strong like chains of hair. He could feel them, but as he twisted his head around he still couldn't see them and that made him helpless as a blind man in a bandit raid.  
  
"Inuyasha!" He could hear Kaede call out to him and saw her dragging herself weakly towards him, leaving a great trail of dark blood on the grassy ground.  
  
"Don't worry so much." He replied. Flexing his powerful muscles. "Who ever is doing this isn't very smart. I can get away from this easy." He felt the strings rip away and he landed on the ground unscathed, shooting a grin at the priestess. "See?" He asked cockily.  
  
"LOOK OUT!" Kaede responded, pointing to the invisible ropes of hair that once again pursued the tall warrior.  
  
"What..?" Inuyasha could feel the lethal coils wrap around him. They slammed him against a near by tree splintering the wood and knocking the air out of his lungs. As he struggled to recover he felt the slither of hair against his skin as a thick rope slid around his neck and began cutting off his airflow.  
  
But Inuyasha was not the type to be done in by some crazy invisible tangle! He struggled with it, digging his heels into the tree bark to brace his body as with enormous strength he tore away the rope that was slowly crushing down on his windpipe. He ducked as the line cut the tree he'd been pinned on in two and escaped again though he could still feel the place where the constricting grip of the hair had taken his breath away.  
  
"That's a relief. For a minute there I thought I was a goner." Inuyasha muttered to Kaede as he leapt over to her side.  
  
"If you were human, you would have been." Kaede replied weakly. Her one eye was dim and the amount of blood pouring from her large wound was enough to make Inuyasha nervous.  
  
But that was not the end. As he bent over Kaede the unseen puppet master rose the village men, wielding vicious looking farm tools and with the same blank expressions on their faces. Inuyasha growled with frustration and knelt down beside Kaede.  
  
"I'm getting awfully sick of this." He growled angrily, deep in his throat.  
  
"Forget about me Inuyasha." Kaede gasped her voice fading fast. She looked up at him and pushed his hand away as he tried to help her up. "Save yourself."  
  
"That's quite the noble act there Kaede but I'm not buying." Inuyasha laughed. He expected Kaede to argue but instead the old women collapsed onto the ground, quiet and motionless.  
  
"Hey! Hey are you alright?" He yelled shaking her shoulder roughly. She did not respond and Inuyasha sighed, running his fingers through his hair helplessly. "Shit!" He cursed.  
  
~IY~  
  
Yura gathered her long hair in coils from her battle in the village, sighing. She'd been disappointed by the escape of the two people not under the control of the hair and was determined to capture them.  
  
"Why look at this." She said plucking a clinging strand of hair off her own tresses. "Hair." She held it up to the fading light of the sun and gasped as she observed its color.  
  
"Why it's SILVER!" She exclaimed completely delighted. "How beautiful it is. I simply must have the rest of it." She looked up as a tremor ran through her net like it was a web. "And there it is." She said as she followed the telltale feeling of someone breaking through her web of hair.  
  
~IY~  
  
Inuyasha could feel the hot trickle of Kaede's blood against his back as he ran. She tried to warn him of the invisible hairs in the path before him but Inuyasha ignored them as he ran, feeling them break before his legs harmlessly.  
  
"Just hold on and worry about yourself old woman." He snarled as he leapt over a large decaying log. "I'll worry about the hair later."  
  
"Put me down here." Kaede murmured the weakness of her voice alarming to the normally unflappable hanyou. He slid to a stop and carefully lowered her from his back before setting her against a tree trunk to rest.  
  
"You can see the hair then? Can you tell me where it's being pulled from?" Inuyasha asked staring around the empty trees.  
  
"I could but I am in no condition to help ye fight yer foe. Ye will need to get Amber to assist ye." Kaede answered her eye closing slowly and painfully.  
  
"Amber can see the threads?" He asked her bending down close.  
  
"Yes." Kaede answered weakly, the rise and fall of her chest beginning to falter. She lay motionless now and Inuyasha stared, unsure of exactly what he was expected to do.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber woke painfully in the damp cold of the cellar where she had been lost. She struggled to her feet and looked up, where she could hear faint voices and the thud of someone walking slowly down the stairs accompanied by someone much more urgent.  
  
"Souta we've already looked down there a thousand times." The voice of the elderly shrine keeper that was Souta's grandfather suddenly became the most welcoming in the world and Amber yelled up at them, lapsing slowly into hysterics.  
  
"I AM DOWN HERE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET ME OUT!" She screamed. There was silence above her for a moment and then the golden bean of a flashlight fell over her and she squinted up at the two dark forms.  
  
"Amber?" The voice of the old shrine keeper was concerned as though expecting some creature clad in her skin.  
  
"Yes now please get me out." She screamed up, clawing at the sides of the stone prison, ready to rip every nail from her hands on the long climb up.  
  
~IY~  
  
Inuyasha lowered Kaede into the hole he'd dug for her and clambered up, dusting off his clothes and sighing as he began to spread the earth over her once more.  
  
"I guess it's the least I can do for you." He muttered to her as he worked. He let silence fall over the forest as he reached back for more of the dark soil.  
  
"I am resting not dead you foolish boy." Kaede said suddenly, her eye opening and glaring at him fiercely.  
  
Inuyasha jumped unpleasantly and stared at her for a minute before recovering his ill temper. "Use it as a hiding place then." He snarled, working harder. "I'll come back and get you... if I remember."  
  
When she was covered he tossed a few handfuls of leaves and torn grass over her before standing up.  
  
"Do you promise to remember?" Kaede asked looking at him, silhouetted by the fierce rays of the setting sun.  
  
He ignored her for a minute before muttering a stifled yes under his breath. Satisfied Kaede settled deep in her hole, knowing that she must not fall asleep. Inuyasha looked back for a moment before taking off into the forest with a muffled swear. Curse Amber Lote! Of course she left right when he needed her.  
  
~IY~  
  
Was it a dream? Amber looked at herself in modern clothes and wondered. Was it all just a stupid fantasy? She rose from her bed and looked around at the posters she had plastered on her walls and posing before her mirror. Only one way to find out.  
  
The gashed were still there. Red and angry slashes burned closed by a one eyed priestess from the past. It seemed insane but there they were, staring her in the face. Amber sighed and rubbed her forehead.  
  
"Might as well readapt." She said aloud, grabbing her towel and heading for the bathroom. "The shampoo bottle is calling my name."  
  
~`~`~`~`~`~`  
  
Let me say many thanks to all the people who have reviewed! Especially those who came back and reviewed the second chapter. You are all wonderful people!  
  
Good riddance ya loony* - Cookies to anyone who can tell me what movie this is from. You will be a cameo in this story I can promise you that much.  
  
Tootles! Review everyone!  
  
~ Amobea Queen 


	4. Yura of the Deoman Hair futuristic cooki...

Yes I made up a name for the grandfather because he needed one if the story was to continue normally. From now on Sachio is Souta's Grandfather. Just to prevent confusion.  
  
~`~`~`~`~  
  
Sachio finished with his last spirit ward and stepped back to admire his handy work. The newly boarded and ward plastered well was nicely sealed off from the rest of the world and he felt confident that Amber would not be taking anymore tumbles down it. Her story was farfetched but he didn't find it hard to believe. She was full of magic, he'd been able to feel it from holding her picture that Kagome had brought home when they'd signed up for the exchange program. Kagome... he'd thought that she'd be the one with the magic blood but she hadn't shown a sign of it from the day she was born. Now the foul mouthed American was traveling through the Bone Eaters well. It was unfortunate, but maybe for the best. Kagome would not have been a very useful thing to send through the well.  
  
"What are you doing Grandfather?" The girlish voice of Sachio's pretty granddaughter carried down the wooden steps and into the cellar.  
  
"Just boarding up the old well." He replied picking up the bag of nails and the hammer. "I'm coming up for dinner now."  
  
"Do you really believe Amber's story grandfather?" Kagome asked skeptically peering down the staircase. "It's a little... crazy, you have to admit."  
  
"Where is Amber anyway?" Asked Sachio evasively. He looked around the dark courtyard and noted the absence of light in the strange girls' window.  
  
"In the bath of course. She's taken two already today." Kagome answered sniffing disapprovingly. "Whatever she was doing this week it's left an impression on her. She has these big gashes on her back. She says they're from something called an Inuyasha."  
  
"Oh." Sachio replied still not wanting to discuss this type of thing with his somewhat slow granddaughter. Trying to explain this to her might make her already small mind implode even farther.  
  
~IY~  
  
Yes this was definitely Amber's trail. Inuyasha stopped and sniffed the ground softly, following the unmistakable scent of the girl he chased. She had come this way not to long ago. The smell of her was still fresh on the grass, sweet and earthy, Inuyasha had noticed the quality of her scent early on and quickly found a smell that matched it exactly. The scent of the air after it rains. Fresh and clean, like Kikyo when she'd been alive and well. Before she had killed him.  
  
Shaking his head to clear it off such thoughts Inuyasha followed Amber's trail to the Bone Eaters well, he could feel the hairs Kaede had spoken of breaking against his legs and torso. "She was here." He said. There was another smell, hidden under that off hair and old bones but he ignored it and bent down, breathing deeply of the unique smell of Amber Lote. "She used the well to go back home! Damn it!"  
  
Inuyasha stood and considered fighting the strange and still unseen adversary alone. But he restrained himself. Kaede could see this hair, Amber could see this hair but he, Inuyasha, could not. If he was going to win he'd need one of them and Kaede was out of the picture. He leapt easily onto the lip of the well and looked down into the darkness. The familiar smell of Amber mixed with that of the bones, almost overpowering the stench of centuries of death. Bracing himself for the fall, Inuyasha took a deep breath of her scent and leapt.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber finished toweling off her hair and dropped the wet ball of terry cloth by her feet. She pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a clean white tank top, still warm from the dryer. It felt good to be in her time, even if it wasn't really home. The smell of Japanese cooking wafted up the stairs as she pulled her favorite red Seattle Mariners sweat shirt on over her tank top and flopped down on the bed. She pulled out a magazine and leafed through its pages briefly before tossing it aside. It was raining out. She went to the window and looked out across the wet courtyard, her eyes trained on the dark door that led to the cellar.  
  
Amber turned away from the window that leaked cold air into the room and looked in her mirror. She looked normal. She was Asian by appearance, dark haired and bright eyed and moderately pretty though not beautiful as most girls in her school here. She had a wide expressive mouth and a rather long body though her workouts and constant exercise had made her rather thick at the waist and her chest was broad and flat as a board. But she was by definition normal. Then why, oh why had she fallen through the well into another time?  
  
"Amber! Dinner!" The call of Souta's sister Kagome startled the girl out of her musings. Hunger was biting at her stomach like a wild thing and it urged her down the stairs towards the kitchen and the warm smells of food.  
  
"I made egg rolls and ramen!" Kagome informed her brightly as she set the steaming bowl of noodles down on the table. Amber seated herself at the table and smiled weakly. There was also some sort of bread and a spicy smelling sauce. Kagome's mother had died many years ago, when Souta was just a baby. Kagome may have been a brainless ditz but she was a good cook and nice enough so Amber just accepted the food without comment.  
  
She dug into the noodles instantly, silencing the starved monster in her stomach and filling the cold pit inside her. It was good to be back.  
  
~IY~  
  
The smell of food almost hid hers from him as he ran along the hall, his wet clothes leaving puddles of water on the clean floors. He followed it to what he supposed was the kitchen and pulled away the sliding door to reveal Amber Lote, and several other people sitting around a table eating noodles and egg rolls.  
  
She turned to him and her eyes widened as though she didn't know him. They stared at each other for a minute before she swallowed a mouthful of ramen noodles and put her head down on the table. "Oh god, not you." She groaned audibly.  
  
"WHO SAID YOU COULD GO HOME?" Inuyasha yelled stomping over to the startled girl. She sat up and glared at him, the familiar anger rushing back into her eyes like a tidal wave.  
  
"YOU DID!" She yelled standing up. "WHERE DID YOU COME FROM ANYWAY?"  
  
"THE WELL STUPID! WHERE ELSE WOULD I COME FROM?" Inuyasha snarled balling his fists up and glaring at Amber nastily.  
  
"That's a lie." Sachio interrupted suddenly. Two pairs of angry eyes turned to him and he stared back. "I put spirit wards on that well."  
  
"Yeah well I hate to be the one to break it to you, but they don't work." Inuyasha replied, flipping one of the aforementioned spirit wards onto the table. "Now come on." He seized her arm roughly and began dragging her towards the door. "We're leaving."  
  
"LET GO YOU BASTARD!" Amber yelled, digging her heels into the floor. Her sneakers squeaked against the gaudy flowered tile as Inuyasha dragged her steadily across the room towards the door. "YOU DON'T BELONG HERE... GET OUT OF MY TIME!"  
  
"I'm trying to. But if I go you're coming with me." Inuyasha replied as he dragged her into the hallway.  
  
"NO!" She stomped his barefoot and felt his grip loosen. She twisted her wrist but he clung on, hopping on one foot and yanking on her arm with a force so strong that it nearly popped out of her shoulder.  
  
"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" He yelled furiously rounding on his captive.  
  
"YOU'RE TRYING TO DRAG ME DOWN A FUCKING WELL!" Amber replied. Souta was yelling about crazy people, Sachio was staring at Amber as though she'd sprouted another arm from her chest and Kagome was just staring at them blankly, her ramen-laden chopsticks frozen halfway to her mouth. "WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO? LEAP HAPPILY INTO YOUR ARMS AND SING A HAPPY SONG?"  
  
Inuyasha looked at her for a minute as though she'd gone completely insane. Then he turned again and wordlessly dragged her towards the door he'd left open in his hurry. She tried to dig her heels into the floor but she slipped on one of the puddles Inuyasha had left when he was coming in and her arrogant kidnapper dragged her on her ass through the door and across the wet courtyard.  
  
"YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!" Amber screamed as Inuyasha dragged her down the stairs into the cellar. He muttered something that sounded like "crazy bitch" and Amber struggled to her feet intent on kicking his face so far into his red coat he'd be able to wipe his ass with his tongue but stopped at the sight that met her.  
  
Hair. It was as if Rapunzel had got her head stuck in a nuclear experimentation plant. A thick river of the stuff was sprouting out of the well Sachio had said nothing would be able to penetrate. Inuyasha was apparently to stupid to realize he was walking towards a wall of living hair.  
  
"What?" The angry dog-eared imbecile turned towards her, his face clueless.  
  
"Can't you see it dumb ass? There's a thousand pounds of hair in front of you!" Amber exclaimed jerking her sore wrist out of Inuyasha's hand. He turned around and faced the hair that made a menacing sound, like a rattlesnake that has just been stepped on.  
  
"What was that?" Amber looked up to see Souta and the rest of his family framed by the light of the glass lamps that lined the courtyard. She dashed up the stairs, dodging the attack of the hair and slammed the door closed, sliding the bolt firmly into place.  
  
"AMBER WHAT..!? Open this door at once!" Sachio yelled pounding on the wood as Inuyasha spun around like an idiot, blindly slashing at the air.  
  
"IN FRONT OF YOU, YOU STUPID EXCUSE FOR A HUSKIES BITCH!" Amber screamed at him. Inuyasha slashed at the thing in front of him and missed quite spectacularly, slamming face first into the boards.  
  
"God damn that idiot." Amber muttered, then through the slit in the door where Kagome's eyes peered in. "Sorry, but Inuyasha's probably going to ruin your cellar."  
  
"Where is it Amber?" Inuyasha bellowed flailing around, slashing anything solid in the room.  
  
"Left!" Amber yelled as a tendril of hair snaked towards him.  
  
Inuyasha swerved right instead and plunged his claws into the floor, splintering the aged wood.  
  
"YOUR OTHER LEFT IDIOT!" Amber yelled leaping down the stairs and landing spray legged on the cellar floor. She dodged a fierce attack and grabbed hold of the hair. "HERE! I HAVE IT!"  
  
Inuyasha looked up and smiled before attacking again, this time aiming for the thing Amber's arms were wrapped around. He sliced through it easily and Amber dropped the mat of hair with satisfaction written all over her face.  
  
"Yes!" Inuyasha yelled as Amber directed him to another mass of hair. But their gaiety was short lived, for as Amber watched the severed hair rejoined the central mass and the monster was as huge and terrible as before.  
  
"It's not working!" Amber yelled scrambling away from the tendrils of grasping hair.  
  
"Well I could use a bright idea right about now!" Inuyasha replied. He managed to dodge another attack, his white dog-ears able to detect the slither of hair across the floor, but the hair clipped his leg and sent him spiraling off course to land far off in the corner.  
  
Amber desperately surveyed the room, looking for anything of use. Her eyes fell on a single, golden hair that protruded from the mass. The rest of the hair responded to its movements. It was like a game controller and Amber grabbed hold of a frantic, half thought out plan.  
  
She ran forward and stepped into the mass of rough hair, reaching out and snatching the golden hair up. The strength of it was enough to make her lose her footing but she hooked her legs on the rim of the well and screamed to her partner.  
  
"THIS ONE! THIS ONE! CUT THIS ONE!" She screamed clinging desperately to the struggling hair.  
  
Inuyasha leapt over her and sliced it in two with a casual clip of his claws. Amber was almost jerked down the well as the wounded hair ripped itself out of her hands and slipped back into the well, pulling the rest of the hair with it.  
  
"What you can't even fight an overgrown toupee now?" Amber snarled, picking herself off the floor. Her wet jeans clung to her uncomfortably and added to her extreme bad temper that had already reached the boiling point.  
  
"WELL IT WOULD HELP IF I COULD SEE IT!" Inuyasha yelled back in her face. They glared harshly at each other, their eyes burning with a hate that scorched the air around them.  
  
Amber frowned angrily and turned away. She wanted to go back up the stairs and finish dinner but she knew that was impossible. Amber held no veils over her vision of herself, she was pushy, loud, foul mouthed, arrogant and sometimes a little overbearing but she was not as horrible as Inuyasha thought her to be. Sachio, Souta and Kagome had welcomed her, a stranger from another country into their home. If she didn't go back to fight Yura they would be in danger because of it. With a loud, foul swear Amber started up the stairs.  
  
"Where are you going?" Inuyasha snarled.  
  
"Back to the feudal age after I get some dry clothes." Amber replied unbolting the door.  
  
"What just happened?" Kagome asked witlessly as Amber stormed out.  
  
Amber paused and looked at the brainless girl for a minute. "Invisible hair monster." She said matter of factly. "It happens often in the feudal age."  
  
Kagome blinked and looked at the harmless old well and the angry silver haired stranger.  
  
"Don't worry Kagome. I'm sure dog boy will explain it to you if you get him a milkbone." She began walking towards the house wiping a large smear of mud off her jeans and muttering a long string of colorful curses under her breath.  
  
Kagome watched her go and turned to Inuyasha. "Do you want a milkbone?" She asked brightly.  
  
Inuyasha looked at her confused. "What's a milkbone?" He asked, puzzled.  
  
Kagome smiled again. "Come on, I still have some left from taking care of Racer." She began walking back towards the house with the rest of her stunned family and one angry hanyou.  
  
~IY~  
  
Dr. Maegz says: but u were just gone for a week  
  
*Chelze Oh BEHAVE! says: ya where are u going in such a hurry?*  
  
Amber sighed as she read the messages from her friends in America.  
  
Amber when I snap you'll be the first to go says: to feudal japan  
  
Chelze Oh BEHAVE! says: ..................  
  
Dr. Maegz says: I think uve spent a bit to much time with that batty old man amber ur talkin crazy hun  
  
Amber when I snap you'll be the first to go says: im eloping with the king of france im running of to austrailia with crocodile dundee all u guyz need to know is I won't be here  
  
Chelze Oh BEHAVE! has invited you to join a webcam conversation. Accept or Decline?  
  
Amber sighed and pulled on a zipper up sweatshirt before clicking the link.  
  
The face of a pretty girl with dark brown hair and golden toned skin appeared in place of the monkey icon at the corner of the conversation box. The girl gave the camera the finger, a finger that was unnaturally long, then laughed and typed in: face the wrath of my unnaturally long finger.  
  
Amber when I snap you'll be the first to go says: freak of fingerdom  
  
Chelze Oh BEHAVE! says: * is laughing maniacally *  
  
Amber switched on her own cam and was returning Chelsea's immature gestures when... "What's that?" Amber jumped and almost fell out of her chair as Inuyasha peered over her shoulder, looking at all the little words on the screen.  
  
"A computer dip shit." Amber pulled a hat over Inuyasha's ears and turned back to read Chelsea's bolded and underlined exclamation of: A BOY!  
  
Dr. Maegz says: Where?  
  
Amber sighed and turned to Inuyasha. He was holding a plastic bag of bone shaped cookies and munching on them calmly.  
  
"Are those what I think they are?" Amber asked staring at his bag.  
  
"Kagome called them milkbones. They're some sort of futuristic cookie." Inuyasha replied. Amber laughed and copied his comment into her computer conversation. Chelsea took a minute to read it before she flat out toppled out of her chair and disappeared laughing. Inuyasha was watching all this fascinated. He was still eating the milkbones.  
  
"What does he think?" Chelsea asked pulling herself back onto her chair.  
  
Amber relayed Chelsea's question and typed in Inuyasha's response.  
  
Amber when I snap you'll be the first to go says: He thinks they're crunchy and delicious.  
  
Again Chelsea disappeared beneath her desk and Inuyasha just shook his head and crumpled up the empty bag. "Come on, we have to go."  
  
"You weren't so anxious when you were chomping away on your futuristic cookies." Amber replied hotly but went to log off anyway.  
  
Amber when I snap you'll be the first to go says: gtg  
  
Chelze Oh BEHAVE! says: don't forget the pill  
  
Dr. Maegz says: chels! dont be silly! The patch is way more convient!  
  
Amber when I snap you'll be the first to go says: I loathe u both and my vengeance will be swift and terrible to behold  
  
Amber ignored their last comments and logged off as Inuyasha played with her cell phone. She took it from him and laid it back down on her end table.  
  
"Well let's go then." Amber snarled as she headed out the door.  
  
~IY~  
  
The night was clear and cool on the other end of the well. Amber emerged from the now familiar vortex of stars and light gripping one of her companion's hands to keep him from being lost in the infinity of the portal. When two people entered it seemed they were compelled to fly away from each other and she'd barely managed to capture Inuyasha's hand before they were forced apart. But they came through unscathed and Inuyasha pulled off his fire red coat.  
  
"You'll need protection." He said, sounding irritated. "This should keep you at least a little safe."  
  
Amber considered shoving the coat back into his hands but decided against it. The hair lady seemed the kind of person you took precautions against, and though she loathe to admit it, she wasn't exactly world class self defense.  
  
She climbed up the vines and pulled herself over the lip of the well, not scrapping her legs for once because of her wonderful old blue jeans. She slipped Inuyasha's coat on and rolled the sleeves back to allow her access to her hands. She scanned the glade, the trees and bushes still tangled in Yura's deadly hair net.  
  
The golden hair shone away near her feet and she smiled.  
  
"What?" Asked Inuyasha.  
  
"This hair here. It's the guide hair." Amber looked up and pointed in the direction that led farther away from the village. "If we follow it, it should lead us to Yura and the jewel shard she stole."  
  
Inuyasha glared at her. She'd told him about it before they went through the well and he had not taken it well at all. Her mother would have to pay for what he did to that statue. Oh well. Amber reasoned. It's not as if she can't afford it.  
  
~IY~  
  
Kaede held her breath as the strange woman rearranged herself in the trees. She knew who she was. She was Yura of the Hair, responsible for all the chaos around the village.  
  
"Amber and Inuyasha." She thought to herself, barely daring to blink in fear that the childish demon would hear. "Ye must work together if ye can ever hope to defeat this stranger. I wished a calmer demon upon ye for the first battle ye must fight together but it cannot be helped. I can only hope that ye will learn to accept and trust one another before it is to late."  
  
~IY~  
  
Yura dropped to the ground and looked around. Amber and Inuyasha were proving to be an ever more persistent thorn in her side. She did not fear the hanyou and his human bitch by any stretch of the imagination but she had decided to retreat to her fortress.  
  
If she was to defeat them she might as well do it in the comfort of her home. She sighed and summoned forth the ropes of hair she found to be a most convenient method of travel and began to swing herself towards the wonderful palace of skulls she had made for herself. His beautiful silver hair would be a welcome addition to her collection.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Why are we stopping?" Amber asked as Inuyasha dropped her off his back. He shot a harsh glare in her direction and stepped wordlessly to the side to reveal the carnage of Yura.  
  
They were bandits at one time, that much was apparent from their rough garb and large clumsy weapons. There was also a good chance that they were part of the band that's leader had been possessed by the carrion bird, but there was no way of telling for sure. They had all been decapitated.  
  
Amber felt sick and her legs wobbled as she drew in a sharp breath that smelt of blood. The metallic taint of it fouled the air and the thus far inexperienced Amber was amazed by the violent brutality of the death in the glade.  
  
"If this is what she did to fully armed, experienced warriors imagine, oh just imagine, what she can do to you." The nasty voice in her ear sounded amused by her horror but she ignored it and scanned the camp. She spotted the weapon she was looking for and thanked whatever god or goddess that had willed it to be left untouched by any dead bandit.  
  
Inuyasha looked at her and laughed quietly as she scooped up the bow and arrows, though he made no comment. She glared at him but had no voice to mention that she had been the one who thought up the way to destroy the carrion bird. But then she also didn't mention how her idea had also shattered the Shikon Jewel in the process of killing the bird.  
  
Inuyasha looked around the camp a bit more and bent to smell the earth. "There's a scent here." He told her pointing to an ordinary looking patch of dirt. "But I can't get on a fix on it, not in the middle of this." He made a vague motion with his hand that seemed to symbolize the death all around him. "It stinks of blood."  
  
He dusted of his pant legs and stood, gazing around the clearing for a minute before performing one of his amazing jumps and landing beside her. He motioned for her to climb back up on his back and she did so, happy to be away from the death. She rested her head against the pillow made by his thick silver hair and sighed. She was tired and could feel the stiffness seeping into her limbs as she closed her eyes.  
  
"HEY!" Inuyasha yelled jarring her harshly. "Don't fall asleep up there!" He landed in a tree and looked around. "Which way does the hair go now?" Amber scanned the leaves and pointed west, a sudden aching sleepiness overtaking her. Inuyasha jarred her again and she swore at him vigorously and made a point of pulling his hair brutally.  
  
Inuyasha took off and Amber felt the familiar tense of his muscles before he leapt, and the soaring feeling in her stomach as they went from tree to tree. There was something good about this, she decided. Something so close to flying that she almost forgot Inuyasha was a complete ass when they were airborne. The feeling was short lived.  
  
The hair lifted from the trees, twisting and writhing like a tidal wave and Amber barely had a moment to think before it was upon them.  
  
"LEFT!" She screamed. Inuyasha dodged the first hit easily and went spiraling off among the branches. The hair pursued him effortlessly and Amber watched it horrified, as it seemed to expand ominously.  
  
"UP!" Amber took a handful of Inuyasha's hair and pulled up as if to use it as reins for her angry mount. With a cry of pain Inuyasha leapt, the hair brushing along his toes as he jumped.  
  
"RIGHT! STRAIGHT! DOWN! SHARP LEFT!" Amber cried each time pulling the hanyou's hair in a different direction.  
  
"WOULD YOU STOP!" He asked as he pivoted in mid air and climbed the length of the invisible hair. Amber screamed as he leapt off it and flipped easily before dodging so fast it made her stomach lurch.  
  
He landed easily on the hillside and slid down it, his feet spitting dust and pebbles in all directions. Amber held on and looked behind, searching for the hair. Neither of them was prepared for what happened next.  
  
From each side, long ropes of hair snaked out and wrapped around Inuyasha's wrists, yanking him up.  
  
"HEY!" He yelled pulling away as his passenger was thrown from his back and tumbled down the hill roughly. Amber could feel a sharp stone rip into her arm as she rolled helplessly out of control. The rock that waited on the bottom was far worse.  
  
The hard pain of her head wound sent arrows of fire through her skull, as she lay motionless on the ground. She could see nothing but blackness and her head swam when she opened her eyes. There was something hovering in the air beyond her and Amber squinted at it as the darkness threatened to overtake her. A huge fortress made of hair, rising slowly into the sky. Amber shivered and felt the blackness begin to take her.  
  
"Yura!" She exclaimed weakly. And then she was lost.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Oh my, look at the cute little doggy!" Inuyasha struggled angrily as the woman landed before him. She was pretty, short black hair framing a sweet face and black clothing with a yellow sash about her waist. He would have thought her innocent looking if not for the merciless glint of her eye and the cruel note of mocking in her voice. "You must be Inuyasha."  
  
"And you must be Yura of the hair." He replied.  
  
"Charmed." Yura replied. "My but you're the talk of us all Inuyasha! Everyone is whispering about half breed Inuyasha playing fetch with some foul mouthed shrine maiden."  
  
"ME? ME AND THAT HALF WIT HUMAN?" Inuyasha yelled struggling violently. "NOTHING IS GOING ON!"  
  
"You're both half wits to me." Yura said nastily reaching out. Inuyasha pulled back but she merely stroked his hair and smiled. "It's soft! Good, I can use it for my bed!"  
  
Inuyasha looked at her shocked but she merely beckoned to her hair, which came forward and encircled her thin waist, lifting her up to a small hill. "Just look what you've gone and done to the poor jewel!" She exclaimed pulling the string that hung around her neck and letting the attached shard glitter.  
  
"I could have used you to collect the shards for me but since you don't know where they are I'll just wrap all this up and find them for myself. She said tucking the jewel back between her breasts.  
  
"YOU? TAKE CARE OF ME?" Inuyasha threw his head back and laughed. "WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU YOU'LL WISH YOU'D NEVER EVEN HEARD MY NAME!"  
  
Yura frowned at him and Inuyasha unleashed the fierce strength he'd be building up in his arms as they talked. The hair ripped easily as he slashed it and he laughed again as he ran towards her. "You're finished!"  
  
"I don't think so." Yura replied. She summoned forth a wall of hair to protect her, a smug smile painted on her dainty lips. As Inuyasha struck it, unaware that it existed, for he still could not see the hair, it entangled him again, almost choking him as it wound around his throat.  
  
"Oh no." He moaned as Yura smirked at him and unsheathed her red sword.  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber pulled herself from the blackness slowly, as though swimming through glue or wet sand. As the colors reappeared and she sat up the world slipped through sixes, to fives then fours and finally settling on threes. She pulled herself up and looked around.  
  
Amber had never claimed to be a saint. She'd been drunk and high enough to understand how to navigate and her concussion last year had only enhanced her knowledge of the situation. "The middle one." She said reaching for her bow. The feel of it in her hand reassured her and Amber looked to where she'd seen Yura's fortress. It still hovered there and Amber, not having a plan or knowing what to do, began walking towards it. She needed to do something.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Such pretty hair." Yura cooed running Inuyasha's hair between her fingers. "But you haven't taken very good care of it have you? Look at all the split ends!"  
  
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" He yelled kicking her in the stomach. With a cry of rage Yura flew backwards and was caught by her hair. She ran forwards and cut a long track across Inuyasha's chest.  
  
The pain burned as he watched her look at the blood smeared along the cutting edge of her blade. She drew a finger across the blade lightly and licked the blood off, smiling and sighing with pleasure. "I'm going to cut you up into little pieces." She told him pleasantly.  
  
The arrow that hit her in the shoulder was not strong enough to pierce her muscle or even cause real pain. It hung in by the very tip of the head swinging slightly in the cool breeze; Yura pulled it from her body with a slight wince and turned to where the steep ravine began its edge thick with heavy grass.  
  
Amber stood triumphant, bruised and battered but triumphant, her bow fitted with another arrow and pointed directly at her.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Let him go!" The strength of her own voice surprised her as she demanded Yura to release the bleeding Inuyasha. Yura smiled at her sweetly and did nothing. "YOU HEARD ME!" Amber yelled.  
  
"Aw, look Inuyasha." Yura cooed loud enough for Amber to hear from her place. "She wants you back. What a sweet widdle doggy you must be."  
  
She turned back to Amber and laughed. "Sit down and wait your turn dear. I just need to finish disciplining the little doggy."  
  
She turned back to Inuyasha who merely snarled at her and spat in her eye. "Now that was just uncalled for." Yura said wiping the spit off her face.  
  
"Yeah, well you deserve it you ugly hag." Inuyasha replied as Yura smiled softly.  
  
"Now, now there's no reason to speak like that. It simply isn't proper." She lifted her sword and a second arrow came streaking through the air, missing her narrowly and imbedding itself firmly in the ground. Amber let loose another and almost struck Inuyasha as her target dodged easily and landed behind him, using him as a quite effective shield.  
  
"Watch where you're aiming!" Inuyasha cried as the feathers of the lethal arrow traced his side. She drew the bow again but did not shoot, not trusting her risky aim.  
  
"Well I do say. You both have the most ghastly of manners. I'm beginning to think you aren't as mismatched as I initially thought." She patted Inuyasha like he was a harmless puppy and cooed away in his ear. "Don't worry. I'll take care of you in a moment but first," she looked up to where Amber stood, "that woman has to die."  
  
Amber could see the hair and her vision had settled so she managed to dodge the attack and run along the ravine edge, the thick grass beating against her legs. The hair pursued her but her goal was in sight. The bow was still drawn tight and she lifted it and fired the arrow at the fortress before her.  
  
It struck solidly and Amber dodged again, the hair gliding along her leg, the feeling light as a breeze but close enough to make her stomach flop. Yura's cry of dismay was all that told her plan had worked as she struggled with the attacking hair.  
  
"My home!" She exclaimed as the hair around the invading arrow dissolved. Her skulls, the product of centuries of collecting, spilt out in a waterfall of bone, the still clinging hair shining like silk. "Now I have become cross." She glared at Amber, who was still fighting the hair.  
  
With a wave of her hand the hair retreated and Amber found herself surrounded by flames. She gazed around wildly, looking for an escape but the red fire was all around her, its scorching heat washing over her.  
  
"Pity." Yura commented thoughtfully as she watched the human struggle. "Such a waste. There'll be nothing left but ash."  
  
"AMBER!" Inuyasha yelled slashing at the hair that bound him.  
  
"Oh don't worry so much puppy dog." Yura exclaimed turning her back on Amber. "I haven't forgotten you. Pets should never be allowed to outlive their owners." She brandished her sword but Inuyasha had one hand free and his return attack was far more damaging then Yura had anticipated.  
  
"Ow!" She cried as her hand disconnected from her wrist. Her black blood dripped from the stump at the end of her right arm. She looked more surprised then anything else.  
  
"THAT SHOULD TEACH YOU!" Inuyasha yelled thrashing wildly as Amber screamed. She was still surrounded by the lethal flames she could not escape.  
  
"Why that was simply horrible of you!" Yura said as her amputated hand, still gripping her sword, dangled in the air before her. "I think I've kept you quite long enough. Time to die."  
  
~IY~  
  
Amber could see the distance between her flesh and the hungry fire shortening by the second. Inuyasha was still restrained by Yura and seemed helpless. She was stuck.  
  
Amber could see a place where the flames were not as high and sighed. She would surely catch fire if she tried to run and then it would all be over. But there was no choice for her.  
  
She hugged Inuyasha's red coat around herself and tensed. The cloth still smelled like him and she paused thinking of him before charging through the flame. Arrogant, stubborn and pompous but not a bad guy. No worse then her she supposed.  
  
Amber tucked her arms to her sides and charged, feeling the fire envelop her body. She waited for the burning pain, the horrible wrath the fire would take upon her flesh and bone. But it did not come. As she broke away from the fire she looked around and saw Inuyasha had broken away from the hair and was now fighting Yura. She drew her bow but Yura was moving too much for her to be of any help. She would not hit her.  
  
She looked at the pile of skulls that her arrow had drawn from Yura's lair. There was one, close to the top of the pile that caught her eye, red as blood and evil looking. Something called her to it and Amber began to climb, ignoring the sickly texture of bone beneath her fingers.  
  
~IY~  
  
Inuyasha dodged Yura's hand that was attacking him and she yelled at him crossly. "Stop fighting Inuyasha." She scolded. "It's much harder to hit you when you're moving like that!"  
  
The half demon was too busy trying to fight off the hair he could not see and Yura's severed hand to reply but he growled inwardly at the woman's arrogance. He fought off the silky grip of hair on his right wrist and risked a wild attack on Yura who blocked it effortlessly and with a slight flick of her hand, stabbed him in the back with her amputated sword hand.  
  
Inuyasha fell to the ground, unrestrained but in great pain. Yura stepped daintily up to him and reattached her hand. "Much better." She said as the flesh rejoined itself. She looked down on Inuyasha and snorted with laughter, amused by his predicament.  
  
"I suppose I should have assumed a dirty blooded little mongrel like yourself would be no match for me, but I did hope you would be a better challenge then this." Inuyasha stood shakily and glared at her as she stroked the jewel shard around her throat. "I guess you planned on using my jewel to become full demon hmm?"  
  
Inuyasha did not reply so Yura lifted her sword. In an instant Inuyasha had plunged his hand through her chest and pulled it out again, the jewel shard clamped tightly in his fist. In an instant he was gone, leaping away with his ears his only defense against the hair.  
  
"How rude." Yura sighed watching him with disinterest.  
  
She turned to her fortress to see if the hair had begun to repair it yet and caught sight of the girl she'd set the flames upon climbing up the pile of discarded skulls, not even singed.  
  
"How in the world..?" Yura wondered as she looked to where her fire had been. The grass was smoldering as the fire burned itself out and Yura glared at it before looking back at the climbing human. "Ah well. This will take care of her."  
  
~IY~  
  
The attack was easy to dodge and slammed into the skulls instead of Amber's soft flesh but it tore away a chunk of her jeans and sent a miniature avalanche of skulls tumbling down to her. Amber could see the red one come towards her and extended her hand, easily snatching it up and tucking it into Inuyasha's coat. She slid down the mountain of skulls, dodging the attacks of the hair. She screamed as it finally seized her and lifted her into the air, shaking her like a rag doll.  
  
Inuyasha was there in an instant, slashing away at the hair. As it came loose she looked down, towards the vicious spiked rocks twenty feet blow her.  
  
"Don'..." She began as Inuyasha completed his work and the hair released her. The fall seemed impossibly slow as the wind rushed past her ears. The realization struck Inuyasha at the same time a wall of living hair did and whisked him away. She was going to die. Oh god she was going to die.  
  
And she met. Sharp pain shot through her but it was not enough. She scarcely dared to look down at her body but she saw no rocks or blood. She would be bruised and sore come morning but at least for now she was alive.  
  
"WHAT ARE YOU?" Yura was angry now. She landed next to Amber with a bleeding and exhausted looking Inuyasha. "You look mortal enough but nothing will kill you!"  
  
Amber remembered the coat but said nothing. The red coat seemed to be a most effective armor.  
  
"Well let's just see how invincible you are." The next attack was something Inuyasha's coat could not defend her against. The hair was thin and strong and wound itself about her throat with a crushing strength. Amber couldn't breathe.  
  
She clawed at the constricting hair, gasping silently for air. She heard Inuyasha yell something at Yura but she could not make out what it was. The pain in her lungs amplified by the minute as Yura strangled her, until it felt as though her chest might burst in pain. She could not die this way.  
  
"Are you alright?" Inuyasha cut the hair from her throat with a flick of his claws and Amber gasped loudly, sucking in the life giving air. She could barely move in Inuyasha's arms, her limbs weak and slow as she struggled to tell him of the red skull still contained in his coat. He was bleeding and his face was swollen but there was no anger, only hopelessness.  
  
"Coat..." she gasped feeling stupid and helpless. "Coat... Skull... Yura... Fortress." Yura laughed as she escaped whatever temporary set back Inuyasha had forced upon her but Inuyasha had all ready pieced together her mumbling. With a swift movement he pulled the red skull from the coat and smashed it against the stony ground.  
  
"My... my darling!" Yura screamed as she saw the shattered red pieces of the skull. Inuyasha grinned wickedly and picked the red comb from the skulls remnants.  
  
"Bye Yura." He said nastily and broke it with a careless flick of his wrists. Amber smiled as the ability to move slowly returned to her limbs. Yura screamed once before seeming to implode her body shrinking and smoking as she died until there was nothing there but a puff of black smoke the wind carried away easily.  
  
"We did it!" Amber cried weakly as she lifted herself up. She could feel the places on her back where huge purple bruises were already beginning to form and wiped the blood off the place where a rock had ripped into her flesh.  
  
"* I * did it, you mean." Inuyasha replied getting up and wiping the blood of his chest. His wounds leaked blood all over him but he tried to ignore them as Amber glared at him.  
  
"Wadda ya mean you did it?" She asked angrily. You would never have found the skull if it wasn't for me." Amber snarled.  
  
"Well you wouldn't have survived to find the skull if it wasn't for me in the first place." Inuyasha argued.  
  
"YOU ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT THE BIGGEST ASS I HAVE EVER KNOWN!" Amber exploded. She raised one hand to slap him but controlled herself with an almost superhuman effort. "Remind me never to help you again." She grumbled punching him on the shoulder.  
  
Inuyasha fell down as though he was a little girl and Amber laughed, full out laughed as though everything was right with the world again. She laughed until tears started pouring down her face and her cheeks glowed red and she gasped for air with her sides nearly splitting open. Finally she forced herself to stop and dabbed at her eyes still sucking in gulps of air and giggling.  
  
"Why didn't tell me you were hurt that badly? I would've been gentler." She taunted him in a baby voice.  
  
"I hate you Amber." He growled from his place on the ground clawing the clinging leaves off his face.  
  
"I noticed." She replied and helped him to his feet.  
  
~IY~  
  
Kaede thought the wood sounded more relaxed then they had as the dawn began, the once silent birds rising up among the branches to sing the morning chorus. She hoped this meant that Amber and Inuyasha had managed to defeat Yura.  
  
"Inuyasha, only by working together will ye triumph." She whispered herself. She spat out a mouthful of leaves and sighed. "And don't ye dare forget where ye have buried me."  
  
~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
Wow for some reason I really disliked that chapter. But anyway I have managed to update and I hope this will quell the angry horde that has emailed by hotmail account demanding updates. I updated sooner then I expected actually so I'm all happy like. Hope that I get more reviews for this because those are my inspirations! The more you review the faster the second chapter will come out. (Sesshomaru people! Sesshomaru! * drools* )  
  
Cy@ all soon! 


	5. Sesshomaru and Tetsusaiga Combined

Oh yes it's worth the wait! Combined episodes 5 and 6 yes I did. So you get a huge seventeen-page update.  
  
Don't you all feel special?  
  
Anyway, some questions are answered at the end and I've listed all those who I worship. Of course I worship all my reviewers but I'm lazy so I didn't list all of them. What? Why do you think it takes me two weeks to update?  
  
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
Part One: Sesshomaru, Aristocratic Assassin.  
  
The harsh wind smelt of grass and leaves and water as it brushed by his face, its cool probing fingers bringing him news of the world it had passed over. It was early evening, and the air was cooling rapidly and carried the unmistakable odor of village dogs.  
  
"Lord Sesshomaru!" The tall demon looked down at the toad like little creature that scuttled along by his feet, barely even tall enough for his pointed black cap to reach the tips of the grass strands. His eyes, two vast amber orbs, were fixed on the strangely carved staff that floated before them. "The staff has been pointing this way for days. Perhaps this is the grave we seek."  
  
Sesshomaru said nothing as the staff drifted towards the mound of dirt. It was possible but he did not let his excitement show. He had been seeking this grave with earnest for some years now but the smell of mongrels was still heavy on the wind.  
  
They emerged from behind the grave, gaunt scraggly creatures with more bone then flesh. Most likely strays. He thought as he watched them, their jagged teeth leaking ropes of yellowish saliva as they growled deep in their throats.  
  
"You are not worth my time." He informed them stiffly. He extended his index finger and pointed at the pack leader, a scraggly black bitch with narrow yellow eyes that leaked greenish fluid over her nose. With barely a flick of his wrist he killed them, his demon powers rising in an instant and vanishing the next.  
  
"Jaken finish with this grave." He instructed and the toad like creature hopped forward as the staff positioned itself over the grave where it levitated for a moment. Finally the second of the two heads, that off a woman with long black hair that curled around the staff handle, opened her mouth and screamed a shrill note into the darkness.  
  
"This is not the grave we seek." Jaken squeaked looking up at his lord. The tall demon said nothing, not a hair on his head stirred as he stared at the face of the woman. Then he turned quickly on his heel and strode off through the billowing grasses.  
  
~IY~  
  
Inuyasha leaned against the tree, breathing in the misty smell of leaves and bark. It was a hot day, the kind that makes even a half demon sluggish and lazy. He toyed with the confining beads with one clawed hand as he contemplated their master.  
  
Amber's temperament had not improved over the last few days, she seemed quite put out by the fact she had a ring of purple bruises around her neck from the strangling hair while he didn't even bear a scratch from their fight. She'd spent her days avoiding him and every other life form in the village aside from Kaede. When Inuyasha had tried to speak to her she had sat him rudely and walked off muttering under her breath. Inuyasha did not like that girl.  
  
"Hey mutt man!" The call came from the base of the tree. Inuyasha looked down and caught sight the aforementioned girl on the ground dressed in the clothes she'd brought back from her time. Her black hair rippled in the wind like a banner and great hazel eyes were a tad bit less aggressive then he remembered.  
  
"What?" He asked irritated by her various nicknames for him.  
  
"I brought you something." She called taking off her backpack and beginning to rummage through it.  
  
Inuyasha glared down at her suspiciously. "What if I don't want it?" He asked arrogantly.  
  
"Don't make me say THE WORD!" Amber threatened ominously. The bruises around her neck had faded and she no longer walked with a limp but she still winced as she sat down against the tree, her back against the trunk.  
  
"Go ahead." He said leaning back and closing his eyes.  
  
"Sit."  
  
Inuyasha had lost count off all the times he'd been sat but the experience never failed to draw a yelp out of him. He felt himself smashed horribly against the ground as his face was propelled into the soil, his features leaving a perfect mold in the soft ground.  
  
Amber tossed him a box she had fished out of her backpack and stuck a cigarette in her mouth.  
  
"What are these?" He asked. The box was bright red and printed with big yellow letters and a picture of a fluffy, stupid looking dog. Amber lit her cigarette and took a long drag before she answered.  
  
"Milk bones." She said blowing the sour smelling smoke out of her nose. Inuyasha remembered Milk Bones, those cookies from the future. He opened the box and pulled out the bone shaped cookies in their strange bag.  
  
"Thanks." He muttered gruffly. He slid his claw along the bag to open it and picked out a cookie, smiling as he savored its goodness. He liked these future cookies, though he didn't quite understand why there was a dog on the box.  
  
The prick on his neck was barely noticeable. He swatted at it carelessly and felt the tiny round body beneath his fingers.  
  
"Dammit." He swore, picking the creature off his neck. "A flea."  
  
Amber looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "Well it appears Barbie Boy is in need of a flea collar." She taunted. He didn't understand that but he rarely understood Amber's jibes.  
  
"Lord Inuyasha!" The flea said.  
  
"Oh it's you." Inuyasha growled with obvious distaste, glaring at the creature in his hand. It was a tiny little man, his head bald and shiny with a tiny straw like mouth, dressed in miniscule clothes with a bundle tied about his shoulders. "Myouga."  
  
"Who's Myouga?" Amber asked curiously. She smirked as Inuyasha looked up. "Your imaginary friend perhaps?"  
  
Inuyasha glared at her and addressed the tiny demon. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"Lord Inuyasha! I must consult with you and Kaede in her hut, something very important has come up." The fat little youkai crossed his arms and drew himself up. "Very, VERY important."  
  
"Fine. Come on Amber." He popped another cookie into his mouth and watched as Amber picked herself up, wincing in pain. "Let's go."  
  
~IY~  
  
"So you see, the place I was protecting was only a gravestone. You're fathers grave must be located elsewhere." Amber was leaning over squinting at the little creature as he finished his tale. It had taken most of the day between questions and answers and the flea mans talk, the round white moon was rising, its rays filtering through the small windows. Kaede was sitting cross-legged on the reed strewn floor, her face creased in thought and a stick of incense burning in a tall brazier. She said nothing for a long moment so Inuyasha looked over at the creature perched on his shoulder.  
  
"Any idea where?" He asked gruffly, brushing him off.  
  
Myouga landed neatly and turned Amber still looking at him as though he was some fascinating magical creature instead of a flea. "None." He answered sadly. "But your father was a powerful demon Lord Inuyasha, his grave is sure to be beyond the reach of these intruders."  
  
Amber was piecing all this together in her head, trying to form a family tree in her head. Inuyasha was half demon, that she knew so if his father was a demon his mother, of course, was the human side of his family. She drew her attention away from the fascinating little bug and turned it back on her companion.  
  
"I'm sure he was." Inuyasha was saying to Myouga. "But I don't have any memories of the guy so I can't tell you where his grave is."  
  
"If your father was such a powerful demon, what was your mother like?" Amber asked curiously. She must have had something that would attract the attentions of a demon.  
  
"She was a very beautiful woman..." Myouga began closing his eyes and drawing himself up but his story was silenced by Inuyasha's foot. The angry half demon ground the poor creature into the floor then turned to Amber his golden eyes smoldering with anger.  
  
"It doesn't matter what she was like." He informed her stiffly. "My mother died a long time ago." He turned briskly on his heel and stalked out of the small hut.  
  
"What was that all about?" She wondered aloud.  
  
"Ye must not let such a thing trouble ye child." Kaede answered, pushing herself up with one hand and lifting the crumpled form of Myouga the Flea off the floor. "Inuyasha always acts like this when someone mentions his mother."  
  
The old priestess made her way to the door and stopped before passing through, still holding the wounded demon. "I suggest ye do not speak with Inuyasha about his mother Amber. He does not approach the subject easily." And with that she was gone.  
  
~IY~  
  
Inuyasha ran his fingers through his hair and swore inwardly as he remembered his reaction to Amber's innocent question. He sighed as unwanted memories surfaced, their icy crippling grip tightening over his mind. He hated memories.  
  
The wind had picked up during his talk with Myouga. It was strong now, blowing away some of the heat as he perched among the branches of the tree. He banished the memories as he was so used to doing and took a deep breath of the air, watching the moon and peeling the smells it carried apart.  
  
There was one he could not recognize for a long second. As the realization hit him Inuyasha felt an icy fist grab hold of his heart and shove it into his neck. It wasn't possible, he couldn't be here. Not now.  
  
Inuyasha leapt from the tree to see Amber climbing the hill towards him, with a rough sword belted at her waist and a bow across her back. She had been practicing with both, showing more shine with the sword then the bow though even the youngest of trained warriors could still dump her ass down in the dirt. She covered her eyes with her sleeve as the wind blew grit into her eyes.  
  
"Inuyasha!" She yelled pointing. "Behind you!"  
  
He turned. There was a black carriage in the sky, obscured by the swirling clouds of dust and grit. The sky boiled like a stew pot, the clouds gathering to hide the black carriage in their depths. Inuyasha shielded his eyes and glared up at the form of the horseless carriage and the face of the woman staring back at him, her body wrapped in chains. He knew that face. Knew as well as he knew his own.  
  
His mother called out to him. Her voice sweeter then his memories and full of suffering as a massive three fingered hand reached out of the thick clouds. He knew that face so well and he knew the pain that shot through it as the scaled hand snatched the tiny carriage up and smashed it with a careless flick.  
  
"Inuyasha!" The woman called as the huge clawed fingers closed around her slender body. "Inuyasha!"  
  
"Mother!" He called as the hand began to crush her. The fire bright eyes of the monstrous demon pierced the clouds, flashing and spitting sparks as it crushed the helpless woman.  
  
"Mother? I thought you said..." Inuyasha did not have time to listen to Amber. She drew her sword and fought her way against the wind towards him but he was gone in a flash of red cloth. Leaping up and towards the helpless woman in the demons hand.  
  
He sensed the attack before he saw it and pirouetted in mid air, the blazing ball of red fire scorching the very tips of his silver hair. The enraged hanyou landed gracefully, not five feet from where he'd leapt and spied the little creature clutching its staff, his huge bulbous eyes looking down on them.  
  
"Jaken." The bored voice came from the shoulder of the giant demon and the toad like creature lowered its staff reluctantly. "You can kill Inuyasha after I talk to him."  
  
"YOU!" Inuyasha snarled up at him, his amber eyes flashing like pools of molten gold.  
  
"So glad to see you remember me." The white haired demon said, gazing down at the blazing ball of fury that was Inuyasha. "Little brother."  
  
~IY~  
  
"THAT'S YOUR BROTHER?" Amber felt no safer with the bare steel in her hands then she had the moment the black carriage had came out of the sky, horseless, carrying a woman wrapped in chains.  
  
The strange man turned to her, his narrow yellow eyes widening slightly as they came to rest on her slender form. She wished she was more impressive but all she could manage was a glare as the faintest of smiles touched his lips.  
  
He was handsome, far more handsome then Inuyasha with longer hair the same beautiful silver and shining golden eyes. He was tall and graceful looking his long limbs garbed in white and red with a yellow sash and sheathed sword at his slim waist. She saw the strange markings on his high cheekbones and the purple crescent on his brow and a long fluffy rope of white fur rested on his right shoulder. Handsome but cold as ice as he turned back to his angry brother.  
  
"A human Inuyasha?" He asked cocking one eyebrow mockingly. "Wasn't this pathetic pink bag of rice paper flesh enough humiliation?" The human woman writhed as the demon crushed her easily.  
  
"FUCK YOU FLUFFY!" Amber yelled. She had fought her way to Inuyasha's shoulder, the wind tearing at her blue jeans and whipping her hair around her face.  
  
If the demon was surprised by her courage he did not show it. Merely turned back to his younger brother, dismissing her.  
  
"Really, as if you haven't brought enough shame to this family already. Perhaps you'll bed this one before I kill you and father a few half-breeds of your own." His face did not move as he taunted the hanyou, it remained an emotionless mask.  
  
"HEY!" Amber roared an obscenity that scorched the air and made the toad like little creature called Jaken gasp, almost losing his grip on the staff before giving the tall demon a one-finger salute.  
  
"How quaint." The demon said flatly then turned back to his brother without even glancing at her. "I'm looking for our fathers grave Inuyasha. Tell me where it is."  
  
"I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE OLD MAN IS BURIED!" Inuyasha roared angrily. "AND EVEN IF I DID KNOW I WOULDN'T TELL YOU!" He was angrier then Amber had ever seen him.  
  
"Well then your mother will have to suffer." The demon said. Even as Amber watched he pulled a whip from the air. The whip was long and poisonous green, it hissed as it slid through the air, like a living thing before snapping against the demon that clutched the human woman.  
  
"SESSHOMARU!" Inuyasha roared charging forward. "DON'T YOU DARE HURT HER!"  
  
"Where one can see but cannot be seen." Sesshomaru intoned from his seat. "A place where its own keeper cannot look upon. That is the clue Inuyasha. Think."  
  
"It's okay son." Inuyasha's mother screamed as a bright ribbon of blood flowed through the fingers of the demon. "I've already died."  
  
The demon swatted Inuyasha out of the air with one massive hand. He landed hard by Amber's feet and she dropped to her knees pulling him up with both hands.  
  
"SESSHOMARU YOU BASTARD!" Inuyasha yelled hoarsely, brushing Amber away. She sheathed her sword and stood, dark eyes flashing. "Leave her out of this!"  
  
"Which one? Your mother, or that pet human of yours?" Sesshomaru looked down at her. "Would you tell me what I wanted if it was her being crushed?"  
  
"She's nothing to me. Leave Amber out of this!" Inuyasha yelled trying to push the human behind him.  
  
"Oh how cute. You gave it a name. Does it have a collar and a basket by your bed as well?" Sesshomaru snapped his whip again and the creature leant down its clawed hand reaching for Amber.  
  
"I SAID LEAVE HER OUT OF THIS!" Inuyasha roared leaping forward. His claws flashed and four red fountains spurted out of the demons hand as Inuyasha severed it from his wrist. Another leap carried him to the hand gripping his mother. Again his claws flashed and the woman fell, the handless demon bellowing in rage.  
  
"Here, let me help you." Amber whispered, helping Inuyasha's mother to her feet. She was bleeding from a cut concealed somewhere in her clothes, the metallic scent of blood clouding Amber's senses.  
  
She did not speak, merely raised her hands and Amber watched as a glowing orb, no bigger then a grain of sand appeared within them.  
  
"What th—WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" Amber cried backing away as Inuyasha's mother stretched the orb, glowing white and bright as the sun. "STOP!" She yelled lunging forward. The lily flower in its depths sang with power, it's glow engulfing the arrogant girl, she screamed and thrashed away. But in a flash of brilliant white light that lit the very sky she, Inuyasha and his mother were gone.  
  
"The plan is going well Lord Sesshomaru." Jaken squeaked as the stony demon looked down to where they had vanished. "Leave the rest to me."  
  
Sesshomaru looked down at his huge demon, the red eyes leaking tears of pain.  
  
"I have no more use for you." He said quietly. The green whip sprang from his fingers and he killed the monster with a negligent flick of his wrist.  
  
"Yes. Make no mistake Jaken. If you fail I will kill you." He did not even turn to face his minion as he spoke and Jaken felt the chill travel down his spine.  
  
"Yes Lord Sesshomaru." He squeaked bowing deeply. Sesshomaru did not reply, but merely looked away, towards the horizon. Jaken shivered as he began to work, his thoughts clouded by fear. Sesshomaru was a cruel master.  
  
~IY~  
  
The mist rolling off the lily pond covered Amber's face with cool beads of water, her face relaxed and peaceful in her slumber. Inuyasha woke to see her nestled among the tall grasses, sprawled at the edge of the pond, her body limp and motionless. He couldn't tell if she was alive or dead.  
  
There were lily pads dotting the calm dreamy water, their blossoms white and yellow bursts against the muted world that surrounded him. There was soft grass beneath his feet and the sun shone warm and golden, bathing the world in a safe glow. He heard her steps in the grass and turned to face her. His mother.  
  
"Inuyasha." She said, she was beautiful as ever, her long dark hair shining wherever the dim light hit it, sleek and black as a raven's wing. Her heart-shaped face was ever young, the same face that she had died with. She smiled at him and his heart ached. By his feet Amber mumbled something that sounded like his name but she was a million miles away from him. A billion, so far away that it seemed she would never come back. His mother smiled at him here brown eyes full of love and Amber was gone from him.  
  
"Where I am mother?" Inuyasha asked as he stepped away from the girl he'd already forgotten.  
  
"The boundary between life and death." She said. She walked and Inuyasha followed, caught in a trance. "This place is pretty but I cannot dwell here. I will go onto the world of the dead from here." She smelled like spring, a familiar fresh scent that sent him hurdling back through the years into his memory. Memories of the village where he grew up and of her death, especially her death. And the dark, stinking room where she had died.  
  
"I'm sorry I left you alone." She was saying as Inuyasha pulled himself out of the swirling dark of memory. "All alone in that dark time. I hope you can forgive me Inuyasha."  
  
"Mother..." He whispered, his throat aching. All else was forgotten, there was only her, right here, right now. There was something he had forgotten but that seemed so unimportant now. "Mother..."  
  
~IY~  
  
She opened her eyes. It seemed like a superhuman effort to her but she opened them just the same. She was alone in the grass, the cold wet dew soaking through her clothes and chilling her bones.  
  
She couldn't move. There was no sound for a long minute and Amber Lote thought that she had died. She wondered what had become of everyone in the village, what would become of those in her own time when they realized she was never coming back. The voice brought her back, floating across the still pond.  
  
"I'm sorry I left you alone." The sweet voice was that of Inuyasha's mother. The woman who had conjured that ball of light that had brought them here. Wherever here was. She stood across the pond from her, with Inuyasha behind her, a dreamy, lost look in his amber eyes. She wanted to call out to him but her mouth would not move.  
  
The pond swept cold mist over her and she looked down towards the surreal calm of its surface. She could see their reflection in the water, mother and son. But no, that was not the same woman. She had no face. Amber stared hard and looked back to the two people on the shore. Frightened for the first time.  
  
"INUYASHA! THAT ISN'T YOUR MOTHER!" She screamed, but no sound came. Not a single sound. She couldn't move, couldn't save him. He was talking to her, believing she was his dead mother alive again. She screamed in her head, again and again, willing him to look into the pond, to see what she saw. But he had eyes only for his mother who he had lost and who know stood before him. Inside her head Amber screamed.  
  
`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
Part Two: Tetsusaiga the Phantom Sword  
  
`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
"Inuyasha." His mother knelt by the water, a lily in her hands. She placed it on the surface and as the hanyou watched the petals broke apart and floated its petals were splashes of vibrant white against the gray-blue water.  
  
"Mother?" He asked.  
  
"Look into the water Inuyasha." She urged quietly. She pointed to the broken flower and her son obediently knelt and looked, confused yet unafraid.  
  
He saw the rooftops, a birds eye view of the village he knew so well. There were people in a ring, an old hide ball passing between them as they laughed. He had wings, he flew and landed on the thin edge of the roof watching them play their game. He knew what was coming. He remembered.  
  
A little boy dressed in red, his long hair flowing behind him, a banner of rippling silver silk. He tried to step into the circle among the boys his own size but they cut him out roughly, stepping on his bare feet and ignoring his yelps of protest. The boy looked baffled and ran to a larger man laughing.  
  
"Can I play?" He asked smiling. His silver ears perked as the man laughed at him.  
  
"Of course." He said kneeling down. He gave the boy the old ball, it was dirty and worn but the child smiled as though it was golden and precious. "But not with us." At his words a ripple of laughter ran through the group, the left, fading out of the memory like phantoms into the mist. And the boy ran, not understanding what the man had meant when he'd turned his back and cursed him with that horrible word.  
  
"MOTHER!" He cried. The woman turned her face hidden in shadow and opened her arms to him, her pink kimono fluttering in the wind. He was small, only up to her waist but the tall powerful Inuyasha who watched him felt so much envy as the woman enveloped him in her embrace. "What does half-breed mean?"  
  
She looked as though an arrow had pierced her chest as soon as the word passed over his lips. She hugged him closer to her, kissing the top of his head. A tear slid down her cheek catching the moonlight, sparkling like diamond of sorrow. She was crying for him, crying for the little boy in her arms.  
  
Crying for her son.  
  
~IY~  
  
"INUYASHA YOU DUMB FUCK!" Amber thought ferociously. "WAKE UP!"  
  
She fought the paralysis. Fought it with all her heart and soul, willing her limbs to move, twitch DO SOMETHING. They felt like heavy cement and wet sand, like she was chained. The words flashed through her mind. And she saw. She finally saw.  
  
The valley was not beautiful, it was a stagnant swamp, the heavy perfume of the lilies the stink of rotting vegetation. She saw the metal chains wrapped around her body, the creatures that climbed over her, pink and green and blue. She saw Inuyasha weep a single tear and embrace the creature he thought was his mother. She saw her hands disappear inside his back and cried out, nothing more then a whisper. She swore and urged her body to move.  
  
"MOVE DAMN IT, MOVE! She cursed, forcing her limbs to move. Her fingers twitched then moved. Her arms, sagging with the weight of the chains lifted slowly and dropped down. She struggled helplessly. The prick on her neck was all that saved her.  
  
The chains seemed to evaporate as she instinctively slapped the itch on her neck. The creatures dissolved, and she moved and pulled Myouga the Flea from his place at her throat.  
  
"Myouga?" She asked hoarsely. The little creature looked up at her and nodded. "Get down." He whispered.  
  
Amber dropped into the grass at his command.  
  
"Over there. On the lake." She looked, the tiny creature Jaken moored his boat and hopped out scolding the creature who was absorbing Inuyasha.  
  
"That staff he carries is the staff of heads. With it he has power. Take it away and he is nothing." Myouga informed her crouching behind her ear. She nodded her understanding and stole forward through the grass.  
  
"Please god." She thought to herself. "Don't let him see me."  
  
~IY~  
  
"Nothing Woman." Jaken barked his bulging eyes angry. "Have you found out where Lord Sesshomaru's father is buried?"  
  
The faceless woman shook her head and forced the boy further inside her chest where she absorbed him. Jaken frowned and hit the creature with his staff.  
  
"Stupid creature! Stop absorbing him so fast! You'll kill him before we get the information we need!" The toad like creature hopped about the Nothing Woman in anger his staff waving and bobbing.  
  
"The right black pearl." Inuyasha muttered as the Nothing Woman absorbed him.  
  
"That! That was something! Dig further Nothing Woman!" Jaken hit her with his staff again and the woman turned her featureless face towards him.  
  
"If I go any further his soul will break!" The Nothing Woman wailed but she pushed him further.  
  
"Where is the grave?" She whispered.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Where is the grave? Where is the grave? Come on little Inuyasha you can go farther." His mothers' voice was urgent but seemed so far away. He couldn't breathe and there were so many shadows all around him.  
  
"Mother I can't breathe." He gasped. His eyes opened. They saw. Saw Jaken beating the creature who entwined him in her arms and pulled him inside her body, saw the face of his mother melt away to reveal the blank fleshy wall of her face. Not his mother. Not his mother.  
  
"Dig further Nothing Woman!" Jaken squeaked. The woman cried out, her strange featureless face unmoving. Not his Mother.  
  
Something exploded inside of him.  
  
~IY~  
  
She seized the staff easily and pulled it away. Jaken turned, his yellow eyes turning from angry to frightened. She kicked him twice until he fell over then stepped on him, grinding him into the ground with her heel. He squeaked and squirmed in pain as she slammed the end of the staff down on him and finally kicked him away.  
  
The Nothing Woman looked at her, but she had no eyes. Spoke to Inuyasha when she had no mouth.  
  
"You must wake Inuyasha's soul if you plan to free him!" Myouga called from her shoulder. He was hopping up and down in excitement and tugging on her ear lobe.  
  
"Right!" Amber yelled. She held the staff like it was a club and hit the Nothing Woman with it, once, twice three times and then a last before she began to release Inuyasha. Amber threw away the staff and seized Inuyasha with both hands and pulled, her shoes making deep ruts in the dirt.  
  
He slid out, awake with the dreamy film of the trance gone from his eyes.  
  
"YOU!" He roared at the Nothing Woman. She recoiled in fear but as Inuyasha brandished his claws Sesshomaru was there. He threw Amber away, the slight brush of his hand sending her flying. She landed badly but stumbled up, unhurt and swearing bloody murder.  
  
"NO AMBER!" Myouga yelled as she took as step towards the brothers. "DO NOT GET INTO A CONFRONTATION WITH SESSHOMARU! HE'LL KILL US BOTH!"  
  
"A place where even it's keeper cannot look upon it." Sesshomaru whispered. He did not smile, his face did not change as he seized his younger brother around the throat, and his claws pricked the soft skin until five bright spots of red blood welled up on his throat.  
  
"I should have figured it out sooner. I apologize." He looked for a minute as though he was going to pull out Inuyasha's eyes but instead he flicked his wrist and in a flash of bright sparks he drew out a glowing black pearl. He dropped Inuyasha who crumpled into the dirt clutching his eye.  
  
"INUYASHA!" She screamed. Sesshomaru ignored them both and placed the pearl at his feet. "LISTEN YOU FLUFFY FUCK..." Amber began but Myouga bit her hard behind the ear to stop her and she began swatting at him and cursing.  
  
Sesshomaru barely glanced at her.  
  
"YOU USED ME!" Inuyasha staggered to his feet his eyes blazing golden flame. "YOU MADE ME BELIVE YOU'D BROUGHT MY MOTHER BACK FROM THE DEAD YOU EVIL, IGNORANT FUCK." He stood there glaring at his brother for a long second. "You bastard." He cursed before attacking.  
  
Sesshomaru was as emotionless as ever as he summoned his poisonous whip. It hissed as it snaked through the air at the enraged demon.  
  
"NO!" The cry came from the faceless Nothing Woman as she threw herself before the whip. Amber watched, mystified as the whip tore her apart. What it would have done to Inuyasha if not for her.  
  
"What the? Wasn't she trying to eat him or something?" Amber asked the flea on her shoulder.  
  
"The Nothing Woman is the essence of women whose sons died at war. She absorbed Inuyasha. She saw him as her son." Myouga explained. "And though he was not it does not mean her love was any less pure."  
  
"This world is fucked up beyond all recognition." Amber swore as Sesshomaru called his toad forward. Jaken scuttled forth holding the staff he'd retrieved. He handed it to his lord who placed the end of it on top of the pearl he'd fished out of his brothers' eye.  
  
The old man opened his mouth and started laughing, his wooden eyes scrunching up. Amber swore again in disbelief as the pearl glowed purple and a portal opened up beside their competitor. He turned and left, his toad hopping along behind him.  
  
~IY~  
  
"Amber you stay..." Inuyasha turned to where his companion had been standing. She was not there. He looked around frantically for a minute, just in time to see her shoe disappear through the portal.  
  
"God damn that girl." He swore and followed.  
  
The land beyond the portal was nothing but rock hills and patches of green trees. He saw Amber standing there with Myouga on her shoulder, looking confused.  
  
"Are you hurt?" He'd seen Sesshomaru throw her and saw her land badly on her stomach. She lifted her shirt to show him her flat belly, already turning an unsightly purple.  
  
"I'll be fine." She said pulling it down. "At least I didn't bust any ribs." She winced as she spoke and Inuyasha looked around. His brother was nowhere in sight.  
  
"Where did..." He began turning back to him but he felt claws close around him and looked up, ready to fight.  
  
A huge bird, a living skeleton no less, had him about the waist and Amber to. It screeched hoarsely and Amber coughed and choked in pain as it tightened its grip around her.  
  
"Are you sure you didn't break any ribs?" He shouted at her, she did not reply merely swore in pain. Her face was twisted in agony but she pointed to the horizon where an enormous skeletal figure began to take shape.  
  
It was monstrous, taller then fifty houses stacked on top of one another and wide as a football field at the base. The skull was fanged with thick ivory, each razor piece as long as Amber was tall. The sightless sockets stared out at horizon where the sun rose slowly, spraying the sky with crimson and gold.  
  
"Is that what I think it is?" Inuyasha asked as the bird set them down. Amber almost crumbled, holding her side, just below her right breast.  
  
"You forget sometimes that your father was a great demon. A taiyoukai." Myouga replied.  
  
"A teriyaki?" Amber asked shaking her head dimly. Inuyasha put his hand on her side, gently feeling her rib. It was not broken, or if it was it had not moved. She had cracked it at the very least; he could feel it swelling beneath his fingers.  
  
"A taiyoukai." He corrected her and she nodded weakly. He could not find it in him to be angry with her for this. Once he would have cursed her weakness but her face was drawn with pain and streaked with sweat, too tired and bruised to condone his anger. He lifted her gently onto his back as he approached the socket. She gasped slightly in pain but said nothing, her grip so tight that her knuckles had gone the color of snow.  
  
"Into the abyss." She muttered looking over his shoulder. And Inuyasha couldn't help but agree.  
  
~IY~  
  
Tetsusaiga was not an impressive sword. It was small and chipped seemingly nothing more then an old katana with the tip of its blade lodged in a slab of stone. Sesshomaru observed it quietly for a moment before he extended his hand.  
  
The sword's handle was wrapped in old leather that grated his hand as it closed around the sword hilt. He pulled softly and was met by a cackle of power that repelled his hand. Sesshomaru looked at the sword again, looking for anything special.  
  
He heard Inuyasha rather then saw him and swerved to the side as he attacked. Sesshomaru caught sight of his brothers' pet up above their heads perched on one of his fathers' massive ribs. He snorted in laughter and pointed at her.  
  
"Never far from her are you?" He asked mockingly. "I'm beginning to wonder who the master is in this relationship you have." He dodged Inuyasha's angry slash.  
  
"How many times do I have to tell you? LEAVE AMBER OUT OF THIS!" He roared slashing at his brother.  
  
Up on the tree trunk sized ribs, clutching her side Amber could see the hopeless fight. Sesshomaru was much faster, full demon and not even batting an eyelash as his brother flew at him again and again, attacking the air as the tall man slipped away forever out of reach.  
  
"Lord Inuyasha!" Myouga cried. His voice carried through the small space and Amber caught sight of Jaken watching the fight a few feet away, the staff of heads clutched in his wrinkled hands, completely oblivious to her presence.  
  
"The sword! Tetsusaiga!" The tiny man was jumping up and down as Amber slid to the ground, the skulls that made its floor slippery and treacherous as she approached the toad man.  
  
Again she seized the staff but this time the deformed little creature clung onto it, screaming at her. She hit him against the wall until he went flying across the room and turned back to the fight. Inuyasha was attacking his brother again, his claws smashing the many skulls that formed the floor.  
  
"With it he has power." She remembered Myouga telling her as she crouched in the grass. In one smooth motion she brought up her knee and broke the brittle old wood into two pieces across it. "Take it away and he is nothing."  
  
The woman and man did nothing for a long moment. The stillness the crack had wrought hung in the air and Amber felt the eyes of every demon in the skeleton upon her. Then the heads screamed. Both of them, loud and shrill, full of pain.  
  
"She broke the staff!" Jaken cried out as the screams faded away. Inuyasha was looking at her strangely as she kicked the toad roughly.  
  
"Get away you freaky little toad." She cursed as the tiny creature flew away landing with a crunch in a pile of bones.  
  
"Jaken." Sesshomaru said calmly turning to his quivering minion. "Are you so incompetent as to allow a human to take that staff from you?"  
  
"Well she is much bigger then me my lord." Jaken whimpered softly rubbing his pencil thin body where Amber had bruised it in her fury. "She kicked me."  
  
"You are a demon, the staff would have burnt her to a crisp. Yet still you allowed her to take it." He looked back at Amber his yellow eyes cold as winter ice. "That staff took me a long time to find human. When I am done with this simpering pet of yours I will draw its price from your flesh."  
  
"Are you deaf as well as stupid Sesshomaru? How many times have I told you to leave her out of our fight? She's a human, no threat to you." Inuyasha struck again his claws nicking the fabric of his brothers billowing sleeves.  
  
"Lord Inuyasha! The sword! Get Tetsusaiga! Pull it from the pedestal!" Myouga was hopping around in a frenzy, his fat body bouncing like a rubber ball. "Unarmed you don't stand a chance! With the sword you can wreak your vengeance on Sesshomaru."  
  
"I don't need the sword." Inuyasha roared.  
  
"OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" Amber screamed at him, stepping on Jaken. "JUST TAKE THE DAMN THING! KILL HIM WITH THE WEAPON HE WAS TOO WEAK TO PULL HIMSELF."  
  
She'd crossed the line. Sesshomaru turned to her, his yellow eyes afire with rage.  
  
"When this is over I will take you." He informed her coldly. "And I promise you, you insubordinate piece of mortal trash, that you will beg for death before I end it for you." His flat voice chilled her to the bone but Inuyasha snorted with laughter.  
  
He grabbed hold of the sword hilt with one hand.  
  
"Amber has a point big brother." He spat the word like it was the foulest curse. "I think I'll take this sword after all."  
  
He pulled his body tensing stiff and rigid as a whip. Light shone from the stone as he pulled, his face twisted with pain. The light engulfed him, dancing beams of white and rainbow so bright every spectator needed to shield their eyes to prevent themselves from going blind. In the midst of it Inuyasha screamed his cry one of strength and frustration and his form, outlined by the bright light writhed as he pulled. Amber squeezed here eyes shut, as the light grew brighter, and saw no more.  
  
When at last the brightness had faded Inuyasha stood on the pedestal, the carved runes and sculpted gold untouched. Tetsusaiga had not moved.  
  
"To weak to pull it?" Sesshomaru laughed turning to Amber. "Looks like your little hero couldn't do much better hmm?"  
  
Amber frowned as Inuyasha turned on the flea.  
  
"Myouga." He said his voice deadly calm. "I couldn't pull out the sword could I?"  
  
"I don't know what went wrong!" Myouga squeaked, hiding in Amber's hair.  
  
"No time for talk." Sesshomaru cut in. "I have wasted enough of my time on you. I'll kill you and then your human bitch before I claim Tetsusaiga, but it WILL be mine." He lunged. "Taste the poison of my claws." He taunted and they glowed the green of poison death.  
  
Jaken was there, one half of the staff in each hand. "YOU BROKE IT!" He yelled beating her legs pointlessly. Amber stumbled backward in surprise and almost fell. Her hands groped for something and found a handle, wrapped in sweat stained leather.  
  
"For that you die toad man." She told him coldly. He looked scared for a minute but her threat was never finished. She heard Inuyasha cry out as Sesshomaru plunged his fist into his stomach and drew back the poison claws to end the fight.  
  
"NO!" She lurched forward, forgetting she held Tetsusaiga in one hand. She felt it come loose in her hands, then slip from the rocks cold grip. She held it in her hands and swore again in disbelief.  
  
Sesshomaru halted his attack and turned to her, his golden eyes full of confusion. "How did you..?" He asked angrily as she brandished the blade.  
  
"Well this just proves men in the feudal age are just as helpless as they are in my time." Amber thought to herself as the two demons stared at her in amazement.  
  
"What?" She asked as the chipped blade shone in the weak light. The silence stretched on, all eyes fixed on her. She was reminded for a moment of elementary school when the other, wealthy children used to stare at her patched jeans and worn old jacket.  
  
"What?" She asked again.  
  
"Give me that sword." Sesshomaru said his eyes glowing. "And I'll let you live when I'm done with your master.  
  
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
WHOOT!!! A chapter I actually liked! It's a miracle. No it wasn't as funny as it could have been but it's hard to make emotionally non-existent Sesshomaru funny okay? Well it is when you're keeping to his original personality! REVIEW ALL MY PEOPLES! AND READ MY RANTS!!! AND MY THANK YOUS!!!  
  
Ok first off, I LOVE ALL MY REVIEWERS! * Hugs them all. * You guys make writing all worth while. Secondly, WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL MY REVIEWS? YOU ALL E-MAIL ME THREATENING MY LIFE IF I DON'T UPDATE AND NOW I HAVE! MAKE WITH THE REVIEWS ALREADY!  
  
Yes I'm trying to hurry this story along; I'll shorten some of the chapters and skip a few episodes. Basically my plan was to follow the story until their first battle with Koga and then take this story in my own direction. Just so you guys know.  
  
And to the several when will Amber and Inuyasha start snogging each others faces off inquiries I'm tentatively exploring the time line for that right now. All I know is you will not have to wait as long as you do for stupid whiney Kagome because once Amber decides she wants Inu she's going to go after Inu instead of crying and hiding in modern times.  
  
And for those people who have reviewed asking my why I hate Kagome all I can say is shut up. I hate Kagome for my own reasons, which have been clearly stated several times. If you're going to review then at least have the decency to read the story.  
  
Anyway enough of that.  
  
People who have reviewed (almost) every chapter and thus deserve the never ending worship I give them:  
  
KagomeHater Raynee Jamya GreenLeaf Fluffy_Chan Kinelea Wolf Demons Rule Kurama (Though I may need to beat her if she doesn't review soon.) InuSangoLove (Though not for much longer! * sob sob * WHERE ARE YOU? Chibi Moon Roswells Fallen Angel  
  
YOU GUYS ROCK MY SOCKS! :D :D :D 


	6. Inuyasha vs Sesshomaru and Ambers first ...

YAY! UPDATE!  
  
Yes I threw in a kiss for all those people who are just starving for romance. Though it doesn't really mean anything until later on. What? Kikyo hasn't even been reborn yet. There can't be any serious romance yet!  
  
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
"Are you deaf human? I told you to give me that sword." Sesshomaru glared at her, his mask like face finally showing some of his anger. "It's not that difficult of a decision. Either you give it to me and live or I take it from you and you die."  
  
"Or I give it to Inuyasha and he kicks your ass with it." Amber retorted. She'd had quite enough of this arrogant man.  
  
"NO! Amber I don't need that sword. Just give it to him and get out of here." Inuyasha yelled at her, angry that she had suggested he had any need of Tetsusaiga.  
  
"Shut up Inuyasha. You need all the help you can get, you can't even touch him and look at the pansy!" She ignored Jakens scandalized gasp and kicked away the piece of the staff of heads that lay by her feet.  
  
"I'm telling you to just give him the damn sword." Inuyasha yelled, his handsome face streaked with sweat.  
  
"And I'm ignoring you! What part of this are you having trouble understanding?" She turned back to the tall demon, Sesshomaru regarded her with his strange yellow eyes then faced his brother, a cruel smile on his lips.  
  
"What is your fascination with these pathetic little creatures Inuyasha?" He asked. "Look at her, she's soft and weak as wet paper yet if I were to hurt her you'd try to kill me." His eyes gleamed, golden and bright under his white hair, the purple crescent on his brow dark and sinister against his pale skin.  
  
"Does she remind you of your mother perhaps?"  
  
Inuyasha's face darkened like the sky when a cloud passes over the sun. His eyes, two pools of molten gold shone with rage.  
  
"Don't you DARE speak about my mother." He growled. "Amber is NOTHING like her do you hear me? NOTHING LIKE HER!"  
  
Amber glared at him in rage. She still held Tetsusaiga in both hands, her brown eyes flashing with anger.  
  
"Don't talk about his mother." She spat. Oh so valiant defending her little pet. "Don't you even fucking mention his mother."  
  
"It is because of your mother our father finds himself like this." He ignored the angry human and gestured to the gigantic ribcage that formed Tetsusaiga's resting-place. "Perhaps this human will do the same to you." He smiled. "Can't have that now can we?"  
  
He, his clothes billowing out around him as he pointed one long thin finger at her and a cloud of acid green fog shot towards the human girl. She ducked slamming her already damaged ribs against the hard skulls and the poison hit the wall, melting the giant bones like wet snow and pouring a deadly avalanche down on her. She struggled to get away, her hands skidding uselessly against the skulls. She ripped a nail from her finger and left a long trail of blood across the skulls as she struggled for a hold to push herself forwards. Her scream was cut short as the wave of green over took her.  
  
"AMBER!" Inuyasha yelled. "NO! AMBER!"  
  
"See what I mean?" Sesshomaru asked. "Your attachment to her makes you weak, like your attachment to your human mother made you weak. But no matter, you should be stronger now that BOTH of them are dead."  
  
Inuyasha turned his back on the steaming puddle that had killed Amber Lote and attacked his brother, rage consuming him.  
  
"SESSHOMARU!" He roared. "SHE WAS A GIRL! AN INNOCENT, HUMAN GIRL AND YOU MURDERED HER!"  
  
"It was no less then she deserved." He replied. "She spoke as though she were walking with equals instead of beings a hundred times her better."  
  
Skulls splintered under Inuyasha's ferocious attacks as Sesshomaru dodged and spun, slipping easily away. His feet were sure and nimble among the skulls and Inuyasha attacked again and again breaking anything his claws came in contact with.  
  
"Give up Inuyasha." His brother laughed at him golden eyes flashing with cruel pleasure. "You are weak. You've always been weak, a hanyou can never hope to defeat a youkai like me. You're as soft and worthless as poor, pathetic Amber."  
  
"INUYASHA!" The cry was angry and pained. For the third time that day all eyes turned to Amber as she struggled to free herself from the poisonous sludge that coated her. "YOU FUCK! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE ME?"  
  
"What?" Inuyasha asked baffled. "How... why... what..."  
  
"WHAT USE ARE YOU IF YOU CAN'T EVEN SAVE ME FROM THIS STUPID GIRLY MAN?" Amber roared, shaking the last bits of Sesshomaru's poison off her. "I'd be better off with a kitten protecting me." She muttered.  
  
"HEY!" Inuyasha roared back. "WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD?"  
  
"I suppose I should have known Tetsusaiga's magic would defend her." Sesshomaru muttered. "It has powerful warding magic Inuyasha, it would be child's play for a blade that magnificent to shield that tiny human."  
  
"Here take this damn thing." Amber cursed running over to him. She slipped on a skull and Inuyasha caught her, staring at her confused.  
  
"Are you going to take the stupid thing or am * I * going to have to kick your brothers ass with it?" Amber snarled pulling herself out of his arms.  
  
Sesshomaru chuckled deep in his throat. "You? You couldn't even scratch my armor." He laughed again, a cold sound with no trace of mirth. His eyes had changed, no longer golden but scarlet and burning. The red flame of his glare rested in his adversaries and his hair fanned out lining his slender body in a silver cloak as he grew in size.  
  
Even as they watched his face lengthened and became dark and canine, in seconds he was fifty times Amber's size and walking on four legs the size of tree trunks, sprouting soft silver hair all over his body, growling like an animal. Great white fangs lined his canine jaws huge and jagged, dripping saliva that burned holes through the domes of the skulls underfoot. Amber gasped and forced the sword into Inuyasha's hand.  
  
"Well shit." She swore as the enormous dog towered over them, red eyes flashing with mocking fire.  
  
"Any time you'd feel like killing the bastard would be fine with me!" Amber yelled. She groped for a second on her shoulder and pulled Myouga from where he was hiding behind her right ear.  
  
Sesshomaru glared at them, his red eyes spitting sparks of crimson fire. He opened his mouth, his long three tipped tongue slippery with his venomous saliva, and breathed a long pillar of green fog at his brother. Inuyasha dodged and the wall behind him melted into water, letting the sun beyond peek through.  
  
"Damn it, damn it, damn it." Amber cursed as the deadly fumes snaked across the field of skulls.  
  
"AMBER GET TO HIGH GROUND!" Inuyasha yelled from where he was perched on one of the ribs, above his brothers' head.  
  
"What about you?" Amber yelled back as she began to climb. Her side was on fire below her right breast, long tendrils of white-hot agony searing through her as she struggled up the ribs.  
  
"I'll be fine! " He replied. "Just get out!"  
  
"God damn him!" Amber cursed to herself as she struggled. "Stupid men, always got to play the fucking hero."  
  
The going was hard and painful, and she could hear the crashing and sounds of breaking bones below her. She pulled herself up the tenth rib, right below the enormous staircase of the throat and looked down. The bottom of the ribcage was a huge mat of green fog, she could see the small quick form of Inuyasha, jumping around his lumbering brother with the Tetsusaiga in one hand.  
  
"He won't survive in that fog much longer!" Myouga squeaked from her shoulder. "Even Sesshomaru can't last long in that kind of poison."  
  
As they spoke Inuyasha came leaping up the ribs, his sleeve covering his mouth and nose. He was coughing as he landed next to Amber and tried to help her up.  
  
"NO Inuyasha you god damn fool! Get up into the open air and..." She never finished her orders. At that moment Sesshomaru was there, clamping his jagged teeth around his brothers small body and pulling him up through the mouth of the skeleton.  
  
"INUYASHA! NO INUYASHA!" Amber screamed, her fingers scrapping against the bones as she struggled to climb faster, the pain in her side slowed her to a crawl.  
  
Somewhere above her Inuyasha screamed.  
  
~IY~  
  
Sesshomaru shook his head and Inuyasha felt the burst of sun on his face as they emerged from their fathers' mouth. Tetsusaiga was useless in his hand as the gigantic canine ran across the white bone of his fathers nose, he could smell the acidic smell of poison and feel the sharp grating of his bones as Sesshomaru shook him like a rag doll.  
  
Where was Amber?  
  
Was she back in the throat of the skeleton? Was she safe? Had she been knocked down when Sesshomaru had snatched him away? Down into the billowing clouds of poison gas that would kill her in seconds?  
  
He struggled, punching at the teeth that held him and ripping at the gums and lips around him. Nothing worked, Tetsusaiga would not cut and Inuyasha could feel his brothers' glee as he tried to free himself. In instants he would crush him, and then poison him and there would be no way to find out what happened to Amber.  
  
He twisted and saw Sesshomaru's huge red eye, slanted and evil the color of blood. There was no way to reach it. Unless...  
  
Tetsusaiga plunged easily into the eye and Sesshomaru howled in pain and spat his brother onto the skull. Inuyasha was up in seconds as Sesshomaru shook his head, the air was thick with drops of his black blood. He shook himself and glared at his half human brother, a trickle of blood running through the rich silver fall of his fur.  
  
"AMBER!" Inuyasha called. She was there, clambering up the side of the skull, her nail-less finger leaving angry smears of blood against the pristine white.  
  
Sweat poured down her face and into her squinting eyes, a wide purple bruise was rising on her cheek among many scratched that bled and stung. She pulled herself over the edge, breathing explosively and staggered to her feet cupping her side where she'd hurt her ribs. She did not speak, she doubted that after all this she could muster the strength to say his name but lifted her hand and threw a tiny form towards him.  
  
"Myouga?" He asked as he caught the flea.  
  
"Lord Inuyasha, I'm afraid Lady Amber is in great pain." The flea squeaked leaping up on Inuyasha's shoulder.  
  
She stood and pointed weakly to Sesshomaru.  
  
"For the love... of god... KILL... him." She gasped.  
  
Sesshomaru turned back, his blood smeared all across his nose and down his cheek, matting his phenomenal fur. He growled deep in his throat and Inuyasha held the Tetsusaiga in one hand.  
  
"Damn it Myouga this sword doesn't DO anything." He snarled, remembering his brief stay in Sesshomaru's mouth. "It couldn't even cut grass!"  
  
Myouga looked up at his lord nervously and ran a hand across his shiny bald head. "Uh well I..." He began shifting from foot to foot.  
  
He didn't get to finish. Enraged Sesshomaru attacked, his lethal jaws snapping at Inuyasha's head and shoulders. The hanyou dodged and knocked the flea from his shoulder as he flipped across the broad field of the skull.  
  
Sesshomaru attacked again, chips of bone flying everywhere as he lunged and snapped and clawed his eyes flashing with fury. His brother dodged each blow but he was tired and the attacks were far too close for comfort.  
  
"Amber." He gasped as he landed. "I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this up."  
  
"OH COME ON!" She yelled at him still panting. "If I can climb... that high then you... can kill this girl."  
  
"Well even if I can't I haven't got anything to worry about! I'll survive, you haven't got a chance." He regretted saying that as the anger melted away from her face for a split second. Only a split second, for a moment she looked pale and scared the next she was a raging ball of fire.  
  
"WHAT?!" She screamed.  
  
"What are you getting mad at me for?" Inuyasha asked angrily.  
  
"Well what do you expect from me Inuyasha? Do you want me to sing and dance around you in happy little circles perhaps?" She asked. Sesshomaru was watching his brother through his red eyes well aware of the situation unfolding before him. He was taking pleasure in her fear.  
  
"No, I want you to SHUT UP AND LET ME PROTECT YOU!" He yelled back.  
  
She glared at him for a moment and then bit her lip thinking about something. Inuyasha glared at her angrily waiting for her next snappy insult or filthy swear. She looked unsure for a moment and then she did the most unexpected thing she ever could have done. Inuyasha staggered back and looked at her blinking dully.  
  
"What the hell was that about?" He squeaked.  
  
"What you think I'd let myself die without my first sober kiss?" Amber asked, pulling away from him. "Now get out there and kick his ass." She gave him a little push blushing.  
  
"Amber I..." He stuttered.  
  
She cut him off briskly. "Listen don't get yourself worked up." She said shortly. "It was you or Myouga now hurry up, I want to put something cold on this." She touched her tender ribs with one hand.  
  
He did turn, back to his brother who was growling deep in his throat. Tetsusaiga was light and worthless in one hand but he couldn't just walk away from her. He couldn't let Sesshomaru kill her without a fight.  
  
At that thought he felt it. It was faint at first, so faint he ignored it but as the tremors rose through his hand making his very bones vibrate he looked down at the blade in his hand. Again it pulsed as though, encased in its chipped metal blade, a great heart was beating.  
  
"What in the hell?" He asked himself quietly.  
  
Tetsusaiga pulsed and as the tremor faded away the blade began to glow. Bright as white fire it blazed the leather of its handle cool and firm in his hand. The sword was composed of pure light as it grew and changed, the blade extending at least six feet in length, wide as Inuyasha's arm was long with a handle of clean soft leather with the hilt covered in luxurious silver fur. Inuyasha looked on in wonder the sword light and beautiful in his hands.  
  
"Lord Sesshomaru!" Amber glared down at the toad, its pointy hat barely reached her hip and she frowned darkly as it hopped from foot to foot gripping the two pieces of the staff of heads. "Kill him!"  
  
"Listen you slimy little freak." Amber snarled plucking him off the skull. "You need to shut up, or I'll throw you off this skeleton." She dangled him above the miles of empty air between him and the ground.  
  
Jaken said nothing merely gazed at her with his huge yellow eyes shining in fear. He did not move at all as Inuyasha turned on his brother, the Tetsusaiga glowing with unearthly light.  
  
"Time to die." He snarled, and leapt.  
  
The blade was no heavier then the beaten up katana it had once been. Inuyasha sailed through the air, the sun shining off his blades' razor edge pink and golden sparkling like captured magic. It bit into his brothers' flesh fluidly, the sweep of Inuyasha's arm slicing through muscle, tendon and bone almost carelessly. A fountain of black blood surged forth splattering across the white, weather worn bone of the skull they stood on.  
  
Sesshomaru howled in agony and slumped his lost leg flying away beyond the skull. His thick dark blood dripped from the severed stump of his arm and the dog glared at his two adversaries, his wounded eye crying tears of blood to mingle with the waterfall leaking from his leg.  
  
"Want another try?" Inuyasha asked morbidly, brandishing the blood-smeared sword. Sesshomaru glared at his little brother and his crimson eyes snapped with scarlet flame.  
  
He turned and ruffled his fur, sticky with blood and gore, flicked his long tail before leaping beyond the skeleton into the cast realm of trees and hills beyond.  
  
"Take your toad with you!" Amber yelled hurling her captive after him. As Jaken disappeared over the edge of the skull Amber turned back to Inuyasha and the Tetsusaiga.  
  
"Wow." She allowed herself as Inuyasha sheathed his sword. It was a katana again, battered and worthless.  
  
"You okay?" He asked wiping a long trickle of sweat of his face.  
  
"Yeah. I'm fine." Amber replied biting back a sarcastic comment about her painful ribs. Her hand cupped her side gently as she hobbled over to him. They stood in silence for a long moment.  
  
"Thanks." She wasn't sure if he'd heard her or not, if he had he made no sign. The silence stretched on for another long second.  
  
"Lord Inuyasha!" The cry came from the flea perched atop the giant skeletal bird that landed beside them. "Look what I have found! We can use it to get home."  
  
Inuyasha turned to the flea and then back to Amber. She was smiling for the first time in a long time, her battered face suddenly brilliant and pretty behind the scratches and bruises.  
  
"Home." She mumbled.  
  
Inuyasha slung an arm around her waist as she began to limp towards the bird. She leaned heavily on him wincing at the pains of her own battles. The sun was setting at the edge of the world as the bird took flight with Amber Lote and Inuyasha on its back, far closer then before.  
  
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~  
  
Gah I go from a chapter I really liked to this!!! Eww!!! But I was trying to get this chappy out of the way for the next one. I'm skipping over the Toad who Would be Prince and going strait into the Shippo chapters which I think I'm going to shorten and combine into a long chapter like episodes 5 and 6.  
  
Anywho, all of you must review, I shake my fist at you and all that and if anyone comments on that corny last phrase I'll take you off my worshipped reviewers list! Okay so I won't but I'll curse you quietly in my own pathetic little way. 


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